Full text of "Amiga Shopper - Issue 07 (1991-11)(Future Publishing)(GB)"

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Ill

How to build up a powerful desktop
publishing system explained page 123

Unleash the power of the Basic language

with this series of masterclasses....page 83

Learn how to create your own fonts for

screen and printer

page 35

Discover how easy it is to make music with
the Amiga with our new series. ..page 113

Seek out strange new
worlds and build your
own mountains with this
3D fractal landscape
generator page 26

Eight pages of reviews and tutorials on
public domain programs ....pages 91,140

The best forum in Britain for solving your

real life problems. Sixteen pages of
expert advice start on page 49

ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991 • DISCOVER THE AMIGA'S POWER

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1 PUBLISHING

Your guarantee
of value

9 1\

on - see page

154

770961

730001

1 1

KCS POWER PC BOARD

THE HIGHEST RATED PC EMULATOR FOR YOUR AMIGA

PLAY THE LATEST PC

GAMES ON YOUR AMIGA
BEFORE THE AMIGA

VERSION EVEN APPEARS

RUN PROFESSIONAL

MS-DOS SOFTWARE

ON YOUR AMIGA AT A

PRICE YOU CAN AFFORD

>ALi

NEW LOWER
PRICE

£219.95

INCL.

TT^

WWWWW UllUHII

STOP PRESS. ..STOP PRESS. ..STOP PRESS-
ABOUT TO BE RELEASED
VERSION FOR A 1500/2000/2500/3000

Povn*

READ WHAT THE TOP AMIGA MAGS SAY

Germany's highest circulation magazine - Amiga Maeazin 08.91 using PC-Lab found the KCS Board often faster than many 286 AT's. Their overall test ver-
dict "senrgut" (very good). Computer Shopper All the software I tried ran perfectly" Amiga Shopper "Stability 20/20 - Faultless operation in PC
mode from day one • very beginner friendn Amiga Format "Faster than many 286 AT s" Amiga Shopper "Amazing Screen update". AVI "Tlie PC
Board is indeed a very highly compatible device - an essential Amiga hardware purchase"

The KCS Board, although in name an XT, ts SO fast that we leave the last word to Amiga Computing - "What's the point in having a whizzo AT processor
if it's no faster" (and the KCS board does not invalidate your guarantee)

WHAT YOU GET

Memory: Amiga -

512Kb RAM ♦ 512Kb RAM disk
'C - 704Kb

(1500/2000/2500/3000) will use our on-board memory as 1Mb memory expansion.
Video Support: MGA, Hercules, CGA 16 colour
lmminent:tGA/VGA and in colour allowing the program
constant choice from the full 4096 colour palette. This is a software upgrade
available to all.

Disk support: Floppy 3.5", 5.25" up to 3 external hard drives - A590

XT/SCSII/Supra 500XP GVP series and others. Ring for info.

Mouse Support: Amiga mouse as Microsoft mouse

MS-DOS: 4.01 (& manual) Shell (& manual), DOS-Help and GW-Basic, KCS

manual and of course our full helpline support.

ITS SIMPLE - no screwdriver, no soldering iron, no technical knowledge required. Just turn your Amiga over, open the cover, slide the board into the connector, close
the cover and your Amiga PC is ready.

WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS SAY - Copies of letters available on request

surpassed my expectations'; "rivals the Compaq 2H6e I use at work"; even more incredible than I first thought'. The Amiga hasn't had a look in since I
installed the Board"; "Max I take this chance to compliment you on the excellent performance obtained"; "much faster and um Hither than I expected - gr
value for money "; Superb serx'tce"; "Your advice ami assistance was certainly of a standard that most companies have long forgotten.'

BDL

Bitcon Devices Ltd

88 BEWICK ROAD, GATESHEAD, TYNE & WEAR, NE8 IRS, ENGLAND.

Tel: (091) 4901919 __

Fax:(091)4901918 |r^

VISA

Trade enquiries welcome - UK and abroad

Compatibility is except, but no-one can guarantee every stgM program avMtXe
therefore rf your purchase depends on a part»cu*ar program, please as* us first or
send m a copy of the program. (Witti suitable S.A.E. if to be returned.) Price subject
to change without notice.

HELPLINE: 091 490 0202

W E L C O

AT A GLANCE

"I MUM I • *

■

To help you find what you want

quickly and easily, this is a cross-

referenced list of all the products
and subjects covered in this

■ i i ■ * • ... « * « i ♦ .

month's Amiga Shopper. The
subjects covered in Amiga Answers

M Ml I * M M I 14 I M 1 1 * M I • t <

are detailed on page 49; the many
PD programs covered on page 140
are listed there. The page numbers
given are for the first page of the
article in which the product is

mentioned.

[MIMMM I

I I i

3D painting

3D Professional

AmigaDOS

AMOS

Ml l Mil MMi M l M i M I

I ■ MM

I I * I I I I I

Basic

Beginners' Answers

Buying Advice

Cave Maze

Clubs

Competitions

Concept Keyboard

Databases

DICE

Draw 4D

DTP

Education

First Letters

Fonts

Fractals

Genlock

Graphics

Graphing

Imagine

Letters

Maths Dragons
MessyDOS
MIDI

Modula 2
Multi-user system

Music

105
74
49
82
71

153
77
87

138

100, 154

131

140
16

123
87
87
43
26
29, 154
16

131
16
13
87
91

113

105
113

News 6

Personal Fonts Maker 43

Programming 74, 77, 82, 97

Public Domain 29, 91, 140

Reader Ads 137

Real 3D 16

Shapes and Colours 87

Shareware 29,91,140

Subscriptions 118

Talking Shop 13

User Groups 138

Utilities 140

I M

Video

* i

(mii

Videopilot
Vista Pro

29, 154

Cover image by Manfred Kramer

■

e want to help you get the best out
of your Amiga. That's why you will
find this issue packed with tutorials
and 'how-to' guides which cover the
whole spectrum of Amiga computing. If you want to
set up a desktop publishing system, then turn to

page 121. Beginners in MIDI would do well to read
the first part of a major series on Amiga MIDI
which starts on page 113. More advanced users
will find that our detailed new series on Basic wi

show the way to build better programs. You can
learn how to let more than one person use your
Amiga at the same time on page 105, and C and
AMOS programmers will already be familar with our
sections on those topics. And that's before you
even consider our renowned 16-page Amiga
Answers section, or the business column on
graphing data, or the tutorial on MessyDOS.

This is the biggest ever issue of Amiga
Shopper- 156 pages of advice, reviews and tips.
As we grow we hope to expand our pages of expert
tutorials even more, so you can look forward to a
magazine which really helps you get to grips with
your machine.

There are thousands of Amiga programs which are

available for little more than the price of a disk. And

*
many more which allow you to try the software free

before you buy. Each month in Public Domain World

■

we examine the best of these programs and explain
how to get hold of them.

This month PD expert Phil South reviews a batch
of utilities disks. There a dozens of PD utilities which
no Amiga owner can afford to be without. Virus
killers, disk utilities, programming aids, file archivers
and many others. Find out which disk offers the best
selection. Plus graphics, music, demos...

ENTER THE PD WORLD ON PAGE 140

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Graphics on a flat screen can really come to
life by adding three-dimensional effects. While a
skilled artist can draw 3D images directly, with the
help of the Amiga even those of us who are lacking
in painting skills can produce pictures with proper
perspective and shading, and textured surfaces
which look just like the real thing. These effects
are created using 3D painting packages, and we
put four of them to the test in this issue.

But the Amiga can help your artistic talents
even more. With Vista Pro, reviewed on page 26,
the computer can take real geographical data and
draw a landscape based on it from any direction or
perspective. For once the tired cliches about
exploring the world by computer are true; this is a
remarkable program.

As ever, I hope you enjoy this issue of Amiga
Shopper, and don't forget to write in with your

comments and suggestions.

Editor

■■■"■^^^W

SIXTEEN PAGES DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO
ANSWERING YOUR QUESTIONS

Every month in Amiga Answers our panel of experts
answer more genuine reader questions than any
other Amiga magazine. This month we solve
problems on: DATABASES • SCREEN
PROGRAMMING • SERIAL CABLES • HUNKS •
KEYBOARD MAPS • RAM EXPANSION • RAM
DISKS • BOUNCING BALLS(!) • VIDEO TITLING •

♦ MODEMS • SCSI •

■

a _

• CAD • GARY CHIP • GRAPHICS CONVERSION •

and many, many more.

THE ANSWERS START ON PAGE 49

BEGINNERS TURN TO PAGE

■ »

.7»xv;ww:«

:■:■:;■■:■;■ : - :>

I -W

This magazine comes from Future Publishing, a
company founded just six years ago, but which
now sells more computer magazines than any
other publisher in Britain. We offer:

Better advice. Our titles are packed with tips,
suggestions and explanatory features, written by
the best in the business.

Stronger reviews. We have a cast-iron policy of
editorial independence, and our reviews give clear
buying recommendations.

Clearer design. You need solid information, and
you need it fast. So our designers highlight key
elements in the articles by using charts,

Your guarantee of value

diagrams, summary boxes, annotated
photographs and so on.

Greater relevance. At Future, editors operate
under two golden rules:

• Understand your readers' needs.

• Satisfy them.

More reader interaction. We draw strongly on

readers' contributions, resulting in the liveliest
letters pages and the best reader tips. Buying one
of our magazines is like joining a nationwide user
group.

Better value for money. More pages, better
quality: magazines you can trust.

uiure

PUBLISHING

The home of Britain's finest computer magazines:

Amiga Shopper • Amiga Format • Amiga Power

New Computer Express • Public Domain

Commodore Format • 8000 Plus • PC Plus

ST Format • Your Sinclair • Sega Power
Amstrad Action • PC Answers • PC Format

and
Mountain Biking UK • Needlecraft • Classic CD

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

H^V

° F ° E

Introducing SaxonScript Professional,'" the most powerful and sophisticated PostScript Interpreter
available on the commercial market. It's like turning your dot matrix, ink-jet or laser printer into a
full fledged PostScript printer, with the added flexibility of being able to edit and manipulate
individual files! On printers equipped with resolutions of 300 dpi or more, the output quality of
SaxonScript Professional actually exceeds that of 300 dpi Adobe PostScript laser printers!
Halftoned areas in particular, are consistently sharper, more detailed and feature better transitions
between various levels of grey than comparable images produced by using PostScript.

PostScript Output at 300 dpi SaxonScript Output at 300 dpi

FEATURES

When pixel values cannot be reproduced exactly. PostScript
renders the affected pixels in the closest darker shade
available at the given screen density. Subtle details are
inevitably lost as a result. PostScript halftones also tend to
have a grainy appearance because of PostScript's inability to
produce irregularly shaped halftone cells.

PostScript's approach to
halftoning limits the
maximum number of pos-
sible greys to a func-
tion of both resolution
and screen frequency.
At lower resolutions, this
gives rise to the creation
of very visible bands of
grey which degrade the
overall quality of printed
images.

FONT CONVERSION UTILITIES

SaxonScript Professional supports all PostScript
downloadable fonts, including Compugraphic and
Adobe l> pc 1 fonts. Custom utilities further allow
you to convert PostScript fonts in Amiga Bitmap,
Saxon Publisher or Adobe Type I formats for use in a
variety of different applications!

[MAGE CONVERSION UllLniES

Convert your PostScript files into IFF, EPS, or DR2D

formats for manipulation in various paint programs
and desktop publishers! Or attach IFF headers to your
EPS files, effectively allowing you to view EPS files

Because SaxonScript 's algorithms intelligently switch
between halftoning and dithering, any pixel value can be
accurately reproduced. Notice the greater detail found in this
image. SaxonScript's images are also sharper and crisper than
comparable PostScript images because of the program's
unique ability to create irregular halftone cells.

Our unique approach to
halftoning does not limit
the number of grey levels
which can be printed.
Consequently, no banding
is visible in areas con-
taining colour gradients.
This permits smoother
transitions and enhances
the overall quality of
printed images.

accurate colour proofs on screen. Using the included
moire testing program, you can also test screen
angles and densities for visible artifacts before
printing! After verification, SaxonScript s proprietary
compression algorithms can be used to compress your
PostScript files into a more compact PostScript format
for faster, i.e., much less expensive output.

SaxonScript Professional is available at your
nearest dealer for only £99.95 inc. VAT! A free
copy of SaxonScript Professional is also included
with every purchase of Saxon Publisher VI. 2.

on screen:

PRINTING UTILITIES

Preview linotronic files for potentially costly errors
before sending your output to a service bureau. Print
PostScript directly to the screen display to obtain

SURFACE UK LIMITED
5 ROCKWARE AVENUE,
GREENFORD TEL: 081-566 6677
MIDDX EXT: 204/205

UB6 0AA FAX: 081-566 6678

■ True virtual memory for
compatibility with low
memory Amiga*, or under
conditions of heavy
multitasking.

• A powerful PostScript
Interpreter featuring the
implementation of all of the
standard PostScript operators

• Support for all Preferences
primers,

• A standard set of fonts*
matching those most com-
monly found in PostScript
printers; Avanl Garde.
Bookman, Cent tin School-
book, Courier, Helvetica,
Palatlno, Times, Zapf
Chancery and Zapf
Dingbats.

• Support for all Postscript
do^nloadaNe fonts including
Co m pu graphic, Adobe
Type 1 and Adobe Type 3
fonts obtained from any
number of different sources.
Any PostScript font on
an Amiga disk can
be manipulated within
SaxonScript Professional*

• Conversion of PostScript
fonts into Saxon Publisher,
Amiga Bitmap, or Adobe Type
I formats.

9 A full colour PostScript
screen preview which is
100% accurate to the
limitations of the screen
display.

■ The ability to convert
PostScript files into a
compressed PostScript
formal for faster output at
service bureaus.

• The ability to test screen
angles and densities for
moire patterns before

printing.

• The ability to integrate
individual separations into a
single full-colour document
for accurate colour proofs
on colour printers.

•The conversion of PostScript
files into IFF, EPS, EPSF, or
DR2D formats for editing
and manipulations in various
applications.

• Automatic sensing of 68881,
or 68882.

• Implementation of all
standard PostScript operators.

• An open architecture to
allow customisation by PD
programmers.

• Delayed prtntmg and print to
disk options.

MIN REQ: 1 meg,

2 drives.

'Amiga is * registered ir*demark
of Commodore -Amiga lnc
•All other products mentioned
herein ire the property o( their
respective owners.

S&fc

IK':iU'i Enquiries Welcome

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SHOPPER

Issue 7 November 1991

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News

Details of a stunning graphics system, the year's biggest
show and more...

Talking Shop

Is the Amiga any use at college? Amiga Shopper readers

have their say.

Basic programming 82

A new series for advanced users starts by looking at
accessing library calls.

Education

Learning can be an adventure in itself, especially with the
right software.

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Solid art 1 6

Amiga art packages can take the effort out of
producing images which look solid and three-
dimensional. We look at four 3D paint programs, and
recommend what to buy for ultimate realism.

—

Vista Pro

Create solid landscapes based on real geographical data
and explore them with this American import.

Video

This month we review EMR's Videopilot V320 video
editing controller, G2's VideoCenter VC3 genlock and a
disk of shareware video tools.

Concept Keyboard

A keyboard without any keys which can make a child's life
much easier.

Personal Fonts Maker

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Design and create your own Amiga screen fonts with this
sophisticated editor.

Using MessyDOS

Hints and tips for using the PD program which lets you
read and write IBM PC disks.

Language of the month

An occasional series on programming languages gets
underway with an examination of Modula 2.

Cliff's Code Conundrum

100

Write a program to count the words in a text file and you
could win a prize.

AmigaDOS

105

How to control your Amiga down the serial cable and set
up a simple multi-user system.

Starting out with MIDI

113

A brand new series on making music with an Amiga and
MIDI instruments starts out by examining what MIDI is
and how it can be used in principle.

123

Subscriptions offer

Take advantage of this unbeatable offer to have Amiga
Shopper delivered directly to your home.

123

Beginning DTP

Thinking of setting up a desktop publishing system? This
is the place to start.

Presenting your data 131

Information can be enhanced by the careful use of charts
and graphs.

Reader ads

137

The best way to buy and sell used Amiga equipment.

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Amiga Answers

Sixteen pages of expert advice on real-life difficulties
encountered by you, the readers. See page 49 for details.

Beginners' Answers

If you are new to the Amiga, this is the place to start.

AMOS

Hints, tips, advice and reviews, including a look at AMOS
3D and calculating the time.

C programming

The last in our C programming series puts the finishing
touches to ADraw.

User Groups list

138

Get in touch with other Amiga owners in your area by
joining a club. We list dozens across the country.

Public Domain World

We put the latest in public domain and shareware
software on test.

140

Buying advice

153

Follow our simple rules for hassle-free buying

Win a £1,000 genlock 154

G2's excellent VideoCenter Plus genlock must be won in
this month's competition.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

E W S

By Cliff Ramshaw

'Revolutionary' Is o

common superlative In the
computer trophic a field. In
tho case of the Black Box

combined graphics and
accelerator system being
developed by DJW

Mlcrooyatoms. Its use Is
justified.

Mark Wills, the
company's software
engineer, expects it to to
"turn the industry upside
down ond shohc it". Dave

Westwooa. the managing

director and designer, thinks

that "the future's only just

begun"

It certainly has for DJW
Microsystems, which has

only been in business since
November last year. Dave

himself previously worked

for the Amiga Centre
Scotland, producer of the

Harlequin graphics board.

But. as Dave explained, his
board is very different.

"The G2. the Harlequin
and the GVP are dumb
display devices." he said.
"The Black Box can do what
they can do and a whole lot
more. It's like comparing an
abacus to a computer." In

fact, when it is released the
Black Box will come supplied
with software to emulate the
other boards on the market.

The idea for the Black
Box came from Dave's plans
to make both an accelerator

board and a 24-bit graphics
board for the Amiga. Instead
he decided to marry the two
on the same board, creating
a system with undreamt-of
power and speed. Neither he
nor Mark could sleep for

It is clocked at 32MHz.
giving a huge increase in
speed, but the Black Box's
true power lies in the two on-
board Texas Instruments
graphics chips. As well as
maintaining a 24-bit colour

"The Black Box will turn
the industry upside down

and shake it

three days at the excitement
of what they had conceived.

The system's main
processor is a 68040. which
completely takes over from
the Amiga's humble 68000.

The secret of
the Black Box

Running alongside the 68040, and
mapped Into Its address space, is the
Graphics Processor Block. This consists
of the Texas Instruments 34020 chip. Its
partner In crime the 34082 co-processor,
and a whole lot of 32 bit wide memory.
The Motorola processor has 1Mb of
RAM for its own use. The GPB memory
consists of 3Mb of high speed VRAM and
1Mb of alpha channel RAM (used for

merging an externally genlocked source

with the 24 bit Image), all of which will
hold one 24-blt image at a resolution of
1,260 x 832 pixels. Another 2Mb Is
supplied as a scratchpad area, holding

programs and data for the two Texas

Instruments chips.

Because all of this memory is mapped
into the 68040 s address space, images
can be directly loaded into the display

buffer. Other graphics boards' frame

buffers are not directly available to the
host computer. Instead, they must be
accessed by a moveable 64K window In

th« computer's memory map: a method

which creates a considerable speed
bottle-neck.

Speed is not something a Black Box
user will have to worry about too much. It
performs blltting operations at 142 million
bits per second, line and arc drawing at
Ave million pixels per second, and area
Alls at up to 1.34 billion bits per second
(aided by a degree of Intelligence In the
Video RAM chips themselves).

Most people will be working in 24-bit
mode, but It Is possible to reduce the
number of colours If they are unnecessary
for the application - In DTP or CAD work,
for example. In this case a palette chip Is
used to select the colours to be used from
the range of 16 million. Using a smaller
number of colours results in a
corresponding increase In speed. Up to 16
palettes of 16 colours each may be
defined, and palettes may be switched
with each scan line of the display to
create many more than 16 colours In a
single frame. It is also possible in this 16
colour mode to double-buffer the display
and switch from one picture to another
Instantaneously.

The Black Box supports two kinds of
genlockfng. The internal genlock will
enable the mixing of a standard Amiga
screen with a 24 bit Image. An external
genlock can also be added, and In this
case video and 24-bit Images can be
mixed In 256 gradations on a pixel-by
pixel basis.

The two Texas processors run In
parallel, so both can be processing
instructions at the same time. With the
68040s ability to process two
Instructions at once, this means that the
system as a whole can perform up to four
operations simultaneously.

This can be increased still further by
the addition of extra 34082
co-processors.

(meaning each point on the
screen can be any one of 16
million colours). 1.260 x
832 pixel display, they offer
the programmer a wealth of
instructions for two- and
three-dimensional graphics
manipulation. Bit-blitting.
area fills, line and arc
drawing clipping and
rotations can all be done
with single instructions. The
two chips make even the
heartiest of Agnuses seem
positively undernourished.

GRAPHICS POWER

Imagine a 3D object
composed of polygons - a
cube, for example. The
programmer need only set
up a data structure and
inform the Graphics
Processor Block (as the two
graphics chips and their
associated memory are
called) that the data
represents a 3D object. The
object will then be displayed,
and any changes made will
result in an immediate
change to the display.

Or imagine a ray-tracing
program. Running on the
68040. it will be blindingly
fast of course. But if it is
written to make specific use
of the Texas chips, it will
render a 640 x 480 24-bit
image in real-time, twenty
frames a second. Compare
this to an array of 16
transputers, which will
produce the same result in
four seconds.

The uses for a graphics
board with this sort of power
are many. Graphic
designers, people who work
to deadlines and would
rather not wait around, have

shown the most interest.
They envisage its use in the
creation of TV games show
logos and so forth.

An idea put forward by
Dave was to use the system
as a route planner. It would
be possible to store
Ordnance Survey maps as
24-bit files, and. using the
internal genlock, overlay the
Amiga's screen on top to
give details relating to
specific routes.

Another use would be in
high quality ray-tracing. Most
packages divide the screen
into quarters and use three
of these to display the
different elevations of the
scene being designed. With
the Black Box. the image
could be displayed in real
time in the fourth quarter.

An application not
mentioned by Dave or Mark
is virtual reality. Doubtless a
system such as the Black
Box would be a great asset
in such a graphics-intensive
field. A closely related
possibility is that of
computer games. Mark has
been dreaming about writing
a mega-game for the system
since day one.

PRE-PRODUCTION

At the moment, the Black
Box is in a pre-production
state. DJW Microsystems

hopes to be shipping

models by January, and
expects to sell 250 in the
first six months. The price
will be around £3.500.

Other models are also
planned, with various
memory and processor
configurations. The top-of-
the-range model will be
clocked at 50 as opposed to
32MHz (once the high-speed
Motorola chips are available)
and will include yet another
co-processor. This will

perform such wonders as
rotation, the displaying of
outline text, and interpolated
zoom - a technique which
avoids the distortion
normally created by
magnifying or reducing a
pixellated image on-screen.
A low-end version of the
Black Box is to be released
for around £350. Although it

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER IWI

E W S

will not use the Texas
Instruments chips, it will be
'intelligent' and largely
software compatible with its
Digger brothers.

A number of addons are
also on the drawing board.

GROM modules include a
Display PostScript package,
a file conversion utility,
(enabling foreign format 24-
bit files to be read and
displayed without
intervention from the main

The Toaster's already out

of date: it was designed
three years ago/'

The first of these to be

available will be a range of

Graphics ROMs, or GROMs.
which will contain programs

for the Texas graphics chips.
The clever thing about this is
that when the system is
switched on it will check
through its GROM sockets to
see which programs are
available. Those that are

present will be added to the

processor's instruction set,
so they may be called as if
they were single machine
code instructions. Calls to
non-existent GROM routines
will result in an error code
being returned. Planned

processor), and a video

studio package, giving a
range of video effects.

Following later will be a
number of RAM expansion
boards, a 32-bit SCSI
adaptor for the fast transfer
of images, an Ethernet
adaptor, a multiple co-
processor board for the
addition of extra 34082s. a
real-time 24-bit digitiser, and
a four input real-time
digitiser/mixer/manipulator.
With this, effects such as
the wrapping of a video
image around a moving
three-dimensional object, as
over-used on Top Of The

Pops, will be readily
achievable.

A system with this
effects unit would be
comparable to NewTek's
Video Toaster, although
more versatile and more
expensive. Referring to this,
Dave said. 'The Toaster's
already out of date: it was
designed and finished three
years ago." No doubt the
Black Box will be in a
position to receive the same
criticism in years to come,
but Dave replied boastfully
to this with. "If we wanted to
design an upgraded version
of any one of the boards, we
could have it on the market
in a fortnight."

Whether DJW
Microsystems can
substantiate this claim
depends on how far the
initial version of the Black
Box catches on. It is an
expensive system, no
question, but one which
offers professional facilities.
It should strengthen further
the Amiga's position in the
video and graphics markets.

DJW Microsystems is on
« 0743 244752.

The Roaring 040s

The latest In Motorola's 680x0 series of microprocessors,
the 68040 offers many extra features over its
predecessors. The 68000. 68020 and 68030 have found
many applications In computers as diverse as the Amiga,
ST, Macintosh and NeXT, but the 68040 Is a very much
more powerful beast. It Is far faster for one thing - 70
times more so than the 68000 - and It processes floating
point numbers as standard, without the need for a maths
co-processor. The Internal floating point unrt that does
this allows a limited form of parallel processing: a floating
point operation can be performed simultaneously with an
integer one.

It Is a true 32-bit processor, at home In a mini-
computer, with an address space of 4Gb (a gigabyte
being 1,024Mb) and a 32-bit wide data bus. meaning that
twice as much data can be sent to or recovered from
memory at once when compared to the 68000.

The 68040 also has a crazy little thing called a
cache. This is an area of memory actually built In to the
chip. There are two areas within the cache, one for
instructions and one for data. Sections of code and data
are temporarily stored here and operations can be
performed much more quickly since external memory
accesses are greatly reduced.

As far as memory accesses go, the 68040 has
another trick up Its sleeve. It has a memory management
unit which can take a memory access to any address and
re-direct it to any other address. Multi-user systems make
use of this kind of facility to support the running of
multiple programs without memory clashes. It Is also,
however, pretty useful for graphics manipulation...

A company in the not-so-grand tradition

ine snort history of computing is fun of stories of small groups working
furtively in garages and bedrooms to create products beyond the
conception of the bigger companies. DJW Microsystems continues this
slowly dying tradition, albeit from a spacious, tastefully decorated house
in Shrewsbury rather than a back room.

The company is essentially a two man team: Dave Westwood is the
managing director and designer of the Black Box's hardware. Mark Wills
his software sidekick and creative spur. Their relationship is relaxed,
fruitful and enthusiastic. To their customers. Mark is known as Mark
'Stonking' Wills because of the unbridled fervour he is apt to use when
describing the Black Box.

The small size of the company gives it a high degree of flexibility.
Dave and Mark relate a story of an interested customer phoning and
asking if the Black Box could support double-buffering to create
stereoscopic images. Marls took the caller's number and asked Dave.

After half an hour's work with their CAD software, they were able to
phone the customer back and say. "It can now.'

They have finally had to curt? their seemingly never-ending flow of
ideas and settle on a final design for the board. There is more to do. At
the moment they are busying themselves with the designs for various
add-ons. Mark also has a 34020 assembler to write.

The company at present makes its money by selling and repairing
computers. A number of smaller-scale Amiga peripherals are also
planned to aid in financing the Black Box project, including a 512K RAM
expansion and a radio modem. On the subject of finance, Dave quipped.
"Let's just say that any time I phone the bank manager, he's out."

Mark Wills (left) and Dave Westwood, the designers of the Black Box.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

E W S

In Brief

ON THE MOVE

Long standing PD house
Ceorgo Thompson
Services has moved. Its
new address is
Cucumber Hall Farm.
Cucumber Lane,
Essendon, Herts AL6 6JB
tr 0707 664654.

RAM AND CRYSTAL

A new 2Mb RAM card

has hh the market from
Alfa Data. It will work
with both Kickstart 1.2
and 1.3, and costs

£140.

Also from Alfa Is a
trackball called the
Crystal because It Is
transparent and glows

red or green depending

on the button which Is

pressed. Quite why you
would want It to do that
lo unclear. Anyway, It
retails for £39.

The products are
available from Golden
Image ~ 081-365 1102.

LONG GUARANTEE

New mail order dealer
Futureworld Computers
now offers a two year
guarantee with all
products sold. Since It is
an authorised service
centre for many of the
products it sells, it is
able to extend the
manufacturers'
guarantees. Futureworld
Computers '-- 0234
218060

COLOUR LASERS

Budding desktop
publishers can get
colour laser prints of
their work from Studio

101, the printing bureau.

Both IFF pictures
and Pro Page files may
be printed, at a cost of
£5 per A4 page (and
£2.50 for each duplicate
page). Contact Studio
101 on » 0827 280884.

HARD DRIVE CUTS

Silica Systems, UK
distributor for Great
Valley Products, has
announced a reduction
In price of the Series II
HD8 Amiga 500 hard
drive from £599 to
£499. Silica Systems
can be reached on »
081-309 1111, tr

World of Commodore show attracts worldwide interest |

Americans invade
Commodore show

NEXT MONTH'S World of
Commodore show is to be

well supported by the leading

American Amiga companies,
who are flying across
especially for the event.

Respected firms such as
the Supra Corporation and
Great Valley Products will
have a major presence at
the Earls Court show,
confirming its pre-eminence
as Europe's leading
showcase for Amiga
products. Both companies
will be showing off their
range of hard disks and
other peripherals.

Also taking a stand will
be NewTek. which will be
exhibiting its Video Toaster
system, reviewed last issue.

as well as its range of
graphics products. Let's
hope that the response will
be sufficient to prompt the
firm to rush out a PAL
version. Other US companies
to take stands include
Sunrize Industries. New
Horizons and Digital
Creations.

The Americans will be
joined by all the big names
in British and European
Amiga computing. The show.
which is the first consumer
show to use the vast Earls
Court II complex, is expected
to attract tens of thousands
of visitors over its three
days. Said show organiser
(and publisher of Amiga
Shopper) Greg Ingham: "This

show looks set to be a hit.
We've been amazed by the
enthusiasm of the
companies who have booked
stalls, many of whom are
cooking up bargain offers."

Admittedly we at Amiga
Shopper could be said to be
biased, but an objective look
at the number of exhibitors
and the sheer size of the
venue reveals that this wilt
be the biggest Amiga show
ever in this country.

The World of
Commodore show will be
held at Earls Court II from
November 15 to 17. For full
details of bookings and
travel arrangements, see the
World of Commodore
advertisement on page 110.

Mastering
directories
made easy

YET ANOTHER disk utility
program for those who can't
be sure of Shell makes its
debut this month. Directory
Opus from INOVAtronics
provides the standard file
handling features such as
two directory windows for
file copying, renaming and
so on.

It also enables the user
to view IFF pictures, brushes
and animations, hear sound
files, read text files and run
executable by clicking on
their filenames. An on-line
help feature Is included, as
is an ARexx port. It requires
1Mb to run, costs £45 and
is available from UK
distributor Checkmate
Digital tr 071-923 0658.
INOVAtronics can be
contacted directly on « 010
1 214 340 4991.

The Amiga on CD

NOW YOU can hear the tunes from your favourite games
In comfort, without the bothersome need to shoot aliens.
Digital Dreams has taken the innovative step of releasing
a line of CDs filled with great computer tunes of our time.

Two CDs are available at the moment, one with tunes
from a selection of Gremlin Graphics games lasting 52
minutes, the other with 58 minutes of tunes from the
games of Psy gnosis.

The Idea Is not all new. The Pixies recently recorded a
version of The Theme From Narc In their own Inimitable
style. Digital Dreams' offerings, however, take the music
direct from the Amiga. The only change occurred in re-
mastering, when the stereo panning was made more
central to compensate for the Amiga's extreme left and
right positioning of sound channels.

The discs cost £14.99 for the pair, and are available
from Digital Dreams on « 0602 754991.

This floating Amiga is courtesy of the ever buoyant staff of
Evesham Micros, who hope to raise £10,000 for the BBC
Children In Need appeal In November. To this end, they're
asking customers to donate a pound in return for a balloon
race ticket. The lucky winner of the race will take away an
A500, monitor and an Atari Lynx games console.

Super genlock

THE RENDALE 8802 genlock
has been revamped to
'super' status. New features
include: Super VHS in and
out, composite in and out.
fade Amiga to black, fade
video to black, cross fade,
cross wipe, foreground/
background mode, fade out
Amiga, and fade out video.
The price is £599.99;
users of the old Rendale can
obtain an upgrade - price
available on application. The
genlock is distributed by
Marcamw 081 941 6117.

AKA anti-alias

A PROGRAM for removing the
jaggies from your bitmap
fonts, called AntiA, has just
been announced by Zen
Computer Services. It will
take any Amiga bitmap font,
produce up to nine scaled-
down sizes and then save
the results as ColorFont data
which can be used in any
non-HAM application or even
converted to work with
programs such as Broadcast
Titter 2. The program costs
£39.95. Zen Computer
Services tr 061-793 1931.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 9 NOVEMBER 1991

a writer's dream

-EI - ^— j — . „_t

The graphical nature of Wordworlh® makes producing
documents faster and easier. The WYSIWYG display shows
exactly how your printed document will look, different fonts,
styles and sizes, headers and footers, graphics and so on.

Commands arc grouped under a series of pull-down
menus, accessible either by the
mouse or keyboard. Frequently used

commands have on-screen icons,
including Help, should you need it.

Experience the look and feel of
the new and exciting WB2 (even if
you use WB 1. 3).

Digita's® innovative Human
Interface Protocor is incorporated and sets new standards in
speed, style and elegance. Each document is a separate multi-
tasking window, which means you could for example, print
one while editing another.

Graphics have always been the Amiga's strong point.
Now it's better than ever. Pictures from Deluxe Paint can be
placed in a document, and then sized, scaled and dragged
(text automatically reformats around
the image).

Wordworth's enhanced fonts v
give you the very best printed
quality. You can also print special
symbols, such as boxes, arrows and
so on. Better still, you can mix
graphics, Wordworth's enhanced
fonts, Amiga fonts, Colorfonts and your printer's own fonts,
all on the same page.

Wordworth integrates with most word processors, and so
you'll be able to use any documents created with Kindwords,
Wordperfect, Prowrite. Pretext. Excellence, and any ASCII or
IFF Text document.

As Amiga Computing put it, "the only Amiga word
processor to rival Pretext for speed. I would recommend the
program to anyone thinking of buying their first
word processor or upgrading from Kindwords."

n ■

HBBBB -

Wordworth is written in the UK by Digita. Which
means you'll be using an English Collins spelling checker
and thesaurus, and you'll know where to come for
proft -ial support.

When Amiga Format said "a
new word processor that will
give the rest ol the world a run
for its money" they weren't
joking. "Wordworth is the most
user-friendly word publisher on
the Amiga." Praise indeed.

The only way to really appreciate Wordworlh is ko use

ii rhone 0395 270273 fbi more information or, write to

Digita, FREEPOST. Exmouth EX8 2YZ

Wordworth costs £129.99, which includes VAT, postage
and packing. Ii I already own a word processor and
purchase Wordworlh direct from Digita, you can save £30
by returning your original disks with youi order,

Wordworth will be your writer's dream.
However, if you don't agree with
us land purchased directly from
Digita}, return it in original
condition within 7 days and we
will refund your mono

Wadworth

Machine support

rU-n SptCificall)

hilly supports WB I M\d V2.00
Supports all medium -«r high
resolution modes (mono «" -ur)

Requires I MB of men

DIGITA

INTERNATIONAL

software thats right

Digita International Ltd Black Horse House Exmouth EX8 lJL ENGLAND Tel: 0395 270273 Fax: 0395 268393

- A member of the 1*6** «'*>"p

Pifl.U AtDtytalogD. Wo<d*ortfc*nJlh* VViffrfwDrthlo^o^frp R t>lrrrdhjJrrnJTU *nd HIP H***n tVfrfmrt PMxtt *nd i*tlM-MJ«iJ< <> X ht jrr fr**ftn*finW l^U Mi*Umj(» Ud

All other IriJenuris and Ihe »r mvnera arc wtaowlnigri Sold fubpet to Uandird roridtf ***** *| wW t k OE

Ring us now! 0636-79097 we're programmed to help

DELIVERY
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and the keenest prices

ART AND DESIGN

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Scanlab Software for above

VIDEO

.£519.99

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£57999

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Broadcast Titler £199.99

Deluxe Video III £59.99

Digiview GOLD (4) £129.99

G2 Broadcast Videocentre £549.99

HBM Genlock £149.99

Home Titler £29.99

MiniGen £104.99

Panasonic VW1410 Video Camera
(Including lens) £229.99

FIND OUT WHY MOST AMIGA USERS PREFER BYTEBACK!

BUSINESS

RGB Splitter £64.99

TV Show (NEW) £54.99

Video Titler 3D (NEW 1 .5) £79 99

Vtdi Amiga £119.99

Vkji Colour Solution £169.99

MUSIC

Audio Master (3) £54.99

Ausio Engineer Plus £169.99

AMAS £79.99

Bars and Pipes Pro £219.99

Deluxe Music Con Set £49.99

Dr. T Copyist Apprentice £69 99

Mastersound £29.99

Midi Master (Hardware) £34.99

Music X (1.1) £99.99

Music X Junior £49.99

Perfect Sound £49.99

Quartet £34.99

GAMES -(ask for full list

AMOS - Games Creator £34 99

Chessmaster 2100 £19.99

Dungeon Master £15.99

Flames of Freedom (Mid 2) £19.99

F19 Stealth Fighter £19.99

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Lemmings £17.99

Life and Death (Mb) £16.99

Railroad Tycoon £23.99

Cashbook £39.99

Day by Day £22.99

DGCalc £27.99

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Home Accounts £22.99

Interspread £39.99

Mailshot Plus £39.99

Personal Tax Planner £27.99

System 3 £39.99

BUSINESS PACKS

Cashbook Combo £49.99

Gold Disk Office £99 99

Kind Words * Organise £49.99

Works Platinum £74.99

WORD PROCESSORS

Excellence £84 99

Interword £39.99

Kind Words £34.99

Pen Pal £6399

Protext(5) £119.99

Scribble Platinum £42 99

Wordworth £74.99

DESK TOP PUBLISHING

Pagesetier (2) £49.99

Page Stream 2.1 £149.99

PRO Clips (Clip Art) £19.99

Professional Page £184.99

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n 49

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10 disks + File box £9.99

20 disks + 2 File boxes £17.99

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AU.24 Spectrum Emulator; Run some

Spectrum games on your Amiga!

AU.26 Complete C Manual; packed

with information on C programming plus 70

examples! (3 Disks : £3.75)

AU.27 Amibase (3.76); Professional

quality, multi-featured database includes

an example 'Books' Me.

AE.01 Blackboard Maths; addition to
multiplication. Colourpad; On screen
colouring book. Plus: Games...
AE.08 Fun Time; Fun School quality
educational fun for preschool children. 5
games (2 Disk : £2.50)

MEMORY EXPANSIONS

X-COPY PROFESSIONAL (3.3)

plus CYCLONE & Hardware!

plus Hard Disk backup £34.99

Vista

Workbench 1.3..

£35.99

EDUCATIONAL

Dinosaur Discovery Kit.
First Letters and Words

£17.99
£17,99

Mickey's Runaway Zoo ....
Donald's Alphabet Chase
Goofy's Railway Express .

£16.99
.£16.99
£16 99

Fun School 2 (Under 6)

Fun School 2 (6 to 8)

Fun School 2 (Over 8)..

Fun School 3 (Under 5),

Fun School 3 (5 to 7)

Fun School 3 (Over 7)...

.£12.99
£12.99
.£12.99

£15.99
£1599
£15.99

Micro English (GCSE)
Micro Maths (GCSE)..
Micro French (GCSE).

£1899
£18.99
.£18.99

Postman Pat

Shapes and Colours

The Three Bears Adventure.

..£8.99

£6.99

£17.99

SND.01 Soundtracker; Four versions of

500K RAM Expansion! £29 99 ,nis ^^^ P0 mus,c Program!

500K RAM * DUNGEON MASTER £44.99 SND.02 Soundtracker 4; Alternative Blue

500K RAM * KICK OFF 2 (Mb) £44.99 version, coupled with complete

1.5 Megabyte Internal RAM £109.99 Instruments disk! (2 Disks : £2.50)

^^^^^^_______^^^^^^_ STI.01 to 08 Instruments; 100's on each

disk, use with Soundtracker! (8 disks :

STAR LC 10 Printer £169.99 S^"** 5 ^* B ^^ A

STAR LC10 Black R,bbon £3.99 f^ 1 * *T^^x****

STAR LC10 Colour Ribbon £5 99 f?™ p ' eS ' "" f^Jf "

STAR LC10 Printer Cover..^ £6_99_ ®^\-™?!?*^]

STAR LC200 Colour Printer £209.99 AW02 Workbench Plus; TVText demo.

STAR LC200 Colour Ribbon £6.99 Frac * als ' V,rus *• CI| P "• DMouse

. AW.03 Icons; 100's including; the amus-

Printer Stand . £9.99 in 9 Naughty Icons. Ram icons. Music

Printer Ltarf """ """'Ww Icons.. .plus Icon utilities.

AW.04 Icon Development; Design your
own Icons or use one of the numerous

Amiga for Beginners £12.99 examr^s.^SUdeshow program^

Amiga Basic Inside & Out £18.99 " ' " ' ' " ' * ' / * '"

Machine Language £14.99 AC °2 t>W**"*r Art; 100 s of protes-

Tricks and Tips £14.99 s J° n ^ qu f''' v ; *! "I*?*™

Amiga DOS Inside and Out £18.99 AC - 04 ,FF Annabels; 30 screens of

Tricks and Tips (Vol.2) £14.99 hl 9 h q ual,tv fon,s P ,us surfaces.

System Programs £32 99

Disk Drives Inside and Out £27.99 AF01 Cosmopolitan Fonts; AV-Guard,

Amiga Graphics In & Out £29.99 Ba se'. Celtic. Geneva. Monaco...

_ _ — .— AF.02 Fancy Fonts; Bubbles. Future.

Programs disks for above £13.99 Broadway. Park Avenue. Courier...

_._,_._._._._._ AF.03 Publishers Fonts; Helvetica.

Hardware Reference Manual £21.99 Bookman, Microsoft, Long Island-
ROM Kernal Manual £28.99 AF.04 Fonts; Unusual fonts. Large and

Kids and the Amiga £13.99 Small fonts. Videofonts...

Second Book of the Amiga £16.99 Plus: Vanous Font Utilities!

BOOKS

All prices include VAT and FIRST CLASS POST!
GUARANTEED RETURN OF POST DELIVERY ON ALL STOCK ITEMS!

DEPT ASH, 6 MUMBY CLOSE. NEWARK, NOTTS NG24 1 JE

Cheque, postal
orders or credit
card facilities
are available

E W S

In Brief

BLITSOFT BACKUP

A disU utility, consisting
of both hardware and
software. Is being
released by Blitsoft.

Called SYBIL, the
device enables file
transfers between
Amiga. PC. Mac and
Atari formats, as well as
increasing disk storage
capacity to 1.12Mb.
Such disks can
nevertheless be read by
those not blessed with
SYBIL.

Other features are a
disk compressor and
what Is euphemistically

described as a back-up

system. It costs £89
from Blitsoft tt 0908

G66265.

BIOLOGY LESSONS

Put an end to all of that
traipsing through forests
and staring down
microscopes with
MicroMeasure from
Think Limited. The
program, with the aid of
a genlock and a video
source, will enable
length and area
measurements to be
taken, via a point-and-
click interface, of
objects on the video.

The program is
expected to be of use to
biologists and earth
scientists. It is available
to schools for £135.13;
to others for £581.63.
Think Limited w 021-384
4168.

GRAPHICS GALORE

Those salivating at the
thought of an A3000 but
quaking at the thought
of an hysterical bank
manager may be
interested in the
Graphics Workstation
from Bytes and Pieces.
At £1,999, it

consists of a revision 6A

motherboard with a CSA
68030 clocked at either
25 or 33MHz and a co-
processor. 2Mb of 32-blt
RAM is supplied as
standard, along with
512K of static RAM.
Also included is 2Mb of
Chip RAM, a flicker fixer
and a 52Mb hard drive.
Bytes and Pieces tt
0253 795376.

BUDGET ACCELERATOR SELLS OUT ALREADY

RARELY THESE days do we see a
peripheral that out-sells supplies
before it's even advertised, but
Microbotics. who recently signed up

with Birmingham-based ZCL has done
Just that with the VXL30, a low-cost
68030 board compatible with all
Amigas that retails for less than an

ordinary A500.

Although performance details
were not available at time of going to

press, the basic 25MHz unit, selling
at £316 inc. VAT, instantly converts
the machine into something like an
Amiga 3000! And for those with a
thirst for real speed, a 40MHz version
is available for just £575.

Although there are cheaper cards
on the market, ZCL claims the VXL30
is the most compatible, having Its
own 68000 already in place. Maths-
intensive programs can use the

optional 68882 running at 25MHz for
an extra £165; while memory hungry
users can get 2Mb of paged RAM for
£234 or 2Mb of burst RAM for £316.
The board has already proved so
popular that ZCL had installed its
original shipment of some 500 units
before any advertising had been
booked! We'll be giving the VXL30 a
thorough work-out shortly. ZCL **
0543 414817.

Drives solid as a Roc

DISK DRIVE specialist
Roctec Electronics is
preparing to start another
price war with a new range
of high-quality, budget-priced
Amiga floppy and hard disk
drives and genlocks, writes
Mark Smiddy.

Previously almost
unheard of. Roctec made its
debut in Amiga Shoppers
April supplement issue
where it received a coveted
Amiga Shopper Best Budget
Buy award for its RF332C
slimline drive.

Included in the new line-
up is the Roclite, a new
version of the RF332C floppy
drive. Supplied in a specially
designed anodised
aluminium case, the Roclite
comes in white for the Amiga
(for about £60) and black for
the CDTV and design-
conscious Amiga users (for
about £65).

Swiftly following this is
the yet unnamed A590-
bashing hard drive. Fast

The new Roctec range: hard disk, two colours of floppy and the RocGen Plus genlock.

enough to frighten your
granny, the drive employs a
18ms. 42Mb IDE drive,
games switch. SCSI through-
port and unpopulated RAM
board for 8Mb of Fast RAM.
Housed in a newly designed
ABS case, colour and
contour matched to the
A500, the drive is expected
to retail at £299!

Backing up the new line-
up is Roctec's genlock to
beat them all. The RocGen

Plus, successor to the
continuing RocGen, features
more advanced mix and
fading facilities as well as
RGB/computer pass-through
and has inputs provided for
Roctec's advanced colour
keying unit. Price is expected
to be under £180.

Located in Hong Kong,
Roctec's operation employs
almost 1,600 people, and
has specialised in producing
unbadged' equipment for

some years now. According
to director Jimmy Lo, the
April review convinced the
company that the time was
right to adopt a proper
corporate image; so all new
products will carry the
distinctive Eagle-like 'Roc'
logo.

At the time of going to
press. Roctec has yet to
confirm UK distribution
details, but expect to see
reviews soon.

More fun out of school

PARENTS WHOSE children have exhausted the
delights of Fun School 3 will be pleased to
know that a sequel is on its way. Called,
appropriately enough. Fun School 4, the
package contains educational games that
follow National Curriculum guidelines.

Teddy and Freddie the Frog, two
characters from the previous package, make
the transition smoothly, but Robbie the Robot
has been dropped in favour of Sammy the
Spy. who is apparently more street cred'
according to politically aware kids.

The games cater for children up to eleven
years old, and cover topics such as art.
maths, words. karaoke(!), sequences, typing,
geography and history. Fun School 4 will cost
£24.99 and will be available from Europress
Software « 0625 859333.

DIARY DATES

October 6: All Formats Computer Fair.

The Brunei Centre. Bristol. « 0225
868100.

October 29 31: Image Processing '91.

National Exhibition Centre. Birmingham.
Blenheim Online » 081-868 4466.
October 31: Computer Animation
Festival. The Odeon, Marble Arch,
London. Blenheim Online « 081-868
4466.

November 3: All Formats Computer Fair.

Royal Horticultural Hall. London, tr 0225
868100.

November 5-7: Computer Graphics '91.

Alexandra Palace. London. Blenheim
Online « 081 868 4466.

Cock-up corner

We printed the wrong price
for New Horizons* ProWrite
package last month - it
should be £129.95.

There were a number of
errors in Jon Bates' review of
Gajits' CMpanion package. It
can copy a partial from one
tone into another. CMpanion
will work with the MT-32. the
CM-32L. the CM-32P and the
CM-64. not with the D-range
of synths. Gajits do produce
other voicing software for the
Amiga: 4D Companion covers
the Roland D 10. D-20 and D-
110 synths. CMpanion does
allow random tone editing.

Buying an Amiga? Don't miss the next Amiga Shopper, out November 7

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

THE BEST ST HOME FINANCE PROGRAM
NOW AVAILABLE FOR THE AMIGA

AMIGA
VERSION

* FULL MULTI TASKING
* OVER 100 BUDGETS SELECTABLE

(10 ANALYSABLE)

ersona

t.19-95

nance

ana

-The World s Most Sophisticated Personal Finance

If you run a personal bank account and have a Commodore
Amiga then you need "PERSONAL FINANCE MANAGER".

AS EASY TO USE AS A CALCULATOR

PFM makes full use of Amiga's Workbench interface, if you
need to amend or update an entry or Standing order simply
click on it. Your screen looks just like a bank statement!

STANDING ORDERS & DIRECT DEBITS EATEN AUVE

PFM handles Credit and Debit - Monthly.Quarterly, Yearly and
even complicated regular payments like 12 payments of £52.99
followed by one of £12.50. PFM will check the date and
automatically insert standing orders as they become due.

BUDGET WITH EASE. AT A CLICK OF A MOUSE.

If you're the type that likes to look ahead then PFM allows you
to set budgets for both expenditure and income. Over 100
budgets can be set over a year, a quarter or a month and then
10 can be displayed either m figures or as a bar graph for a
given period. Expenditure for these budgets can also be shown
as a pie chart so you can tell at a glance where your money's
gone. PFM also allows you to display or print your budget
groups selectively so you can see your expenditure quickly and easily.

BALANCING WITH YOUR BANK ACCOUNT IS NO LONGER A
JUGGLING ACT

When you get your bank account statement or a balance from
an autobank machine you can confirm it with PFM quickly and
easily. Simply select PFM's unique "Auto Balance" option and
type in the balance as given by the bank and PFM will attempt
to balance and highlight entries that have not yet been
processed through the bank.

MAIN ACCOUNT SCREEN

OTHER FEATURES

BUDGET COMPARISON BAR

GRAPH SHOWING BUDGETS

& ACTUAL EXPENDITURE

OR INCOME

Tho numbor of entries 10 limited only by memory size

You define ihe file size

Old entries are automatically deleted

Automatically places entries in date order

European or USA dale formats
Balance of account grapn

Moveable and re sizeable winoows

Run multiple bank accounts by simply using different file names

Multi-Tasking allows Multi-Account access

Facility to check off items agamsl statements

Locates cheques written months ago in seconds

Selective print features (or dates/slatemenls/standing orders and budgets

MicliYron

Program

Home finance Program 5y Peter Veale

Here's what the critics say: Am, ° a Vers,on °V Dan Lannard.

"PFM it one of those rare programs with which it n easy to faal
comfortable from the first time you run it."
Ron Massey ST USER

"Personal Finance Manager is a sophisticated home financial
package, it will probably help you save money "

ST UPDATE

t t

PFM is just the ticket if your expenditure is as disorganised as
mine."

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY.

PIE CHART SHOWING SELECTED
ENTRIES OVER CHOSEN DATES

Free 30-Day Trial

Order direct from MICHTRON
and if you are not 100% satis-
fied, return within 30 days for a
full refund

BALANCE DISPLAY SHOWING

HIGHS & LOWS OVER

SELECTED DATES

NO T COPY PROTECTED

TO ORDER:
SEND TO MICHTRON
PO BOX 68. St Austell.
Cornwall PL25 4YB
Allow 28 Days for delivery

vs.

BY PHONE

WITH CREDIT CARDS

TELE (0726)68020

£30 96(inclP&P|

AMIGA VERSION

Please send me Personal Finance Manager at £30 95 (incl P&P)
D Cheque enclosed made payable to MICHTRON
lJ Please debit my credit card account

rTm

Expiry date

Name

Address

Signed

LETTERS

This is the space which we give
over to you to have your say
every month. Throw in your
ha f penny-worth and you could
pick up a whole £5. Your host, as
ever in these matters, is the editor
- Stuart Anderton.

Wo'vo had a large number of letters
this month on the suitability of the
Amiga (or college work. Here's a
small selection of them:

Although every university or

polytechnic may have their pet
software package and computer
environment, they all have MS-DOS
compatibility In common. It is for
this reason that I must advise
anyone considering any form of
higher education not to buy an
Amiga. I have had a lot of
enjoyment from my machine but
more and more I find that my Amiga
falls very short of my computing
requirements.

Steve C Robinson

Wakefield

Yorkshire

We are forced towards using PCs as
that Is all we have at my
polytechnic (South West,
Plymouth), apart from the
mainframes. I have been using PCs
now for about three years and have
had an Amiga for a year and a half,
and quite honestly, the Amiga Is by
far the better machine. But the fact
remains that It Is not, and will
probably never be, an industry
standard computer because it is not
taken seriously enough by
Commodore. The 500 series is
basically Just an OKtromoly powerful
games machine and the 2000 Is too
expensive at the moment for most

students.

Mark A Williams

Ivy bridge

Devon

In my studies I deal with many
foreign scripts such as Arabic,
Hebrew, Egyptian hieroglyphs and
other such weird and wonderful
beasts. I stand In awe of friends
who use PCs and Macs and are able
to liberally dose their texts with
professional scripts using true right-

to-left editing, and wonder why I, as
a lowly Amiga user, have been
ignored by the manufacturers of
more professional software enjoyed
by these lesser machines.

Jeff Lloyd
Leith

Edinburgh

Most of my colleagues have been
left unemployed this summer, and I
know of at least one whose plans to
buy a PC have been shelved as a
result. Even when the purchase
becomes possible, I suspect that
his decision will be dictated more by
the size of overdraft Incurred than
the advantages the Amiga offers. It
would be nice if Commodore could
make the decision obvious.

Nick Christie

Bournemouth

Dorset

Although the PC is obviously inferior
to the Amiga, much better deals are
available for PCs. Maybe if someone
started making an Amiga-
compatible computer, prices would
come down.

Christopher Brown

Chesterfield

Derbyshire

I have been a fan of the Amiga for
quite some time, and recently I have
instilled the idea of buying an Amiga
in some of my colleagues who want
to own a computer like a Mac II but
are without the financial resources
to do so. I'm sure that if
Commodore could see to
educational users getting a
discount, the Amiga would be put to
good use in educational
establishments.

Mohammed Said
Oxford University

It appears to be a little-known fact
that students actually receive less
income than someone on Income

Support. After paying rent and
college fees I am left with about
£21 a week to pay all the bills, poll
tax etc. Now it doesn't take a
genius to realise that after paying
for materials there isn't a lot left to
buy equipment like Amigas.

Martyn Bibby

Normanton

Derby

At university we mainly have IBM
and IBM-compatible machines. This
means that they are not willing to
accept work which has been
completed on a non-IBM compatible
machine.

I would say to any student
considering buying a machine to
help them with their work to

seriously consider getting one
which is compatible with the
machines at their university.

Paul Ferry

Portsmouth

Hants

Overall our correspondents seem to
be painting a rather depressing
picture of the Amiga in higher
education. But what could
Commodore do to get the Amiga
accepted as a serious machine for
academic use? Your ideas please.

TYPE MISMATCH

In issue 5 a reader from Manchester
wrote in complaining about the C
programming tutorials. May I point

(oitiiuod on paqc 14

Fewer reviews,
more advice

It seems to me that you may have begun to
fall into the trap of some of the games mags.
The trap is to constantly review the latest
releases. Yes. some of your magazine must
contain reviews of the latest developments,
but the reality is that once most of us have
bought a piece of expensive software we
are only vaguely interested In what the
next best thing can do. Instead we want to
perfect our technique on our own systems.
I suggest that you devote at least half
of your DTP column to some of the ideas
hinted at in my Amiga Shopper DTP
cover (right). These ideas are not
specific to a particular package but are
aimed at helping all desktop publishers
improve their trade and link them more closely to
Amiga Shopper as a serious users' magazine.
Kevin Beswick
Wollaton
Nottingham

• A few suggestions
from Kevin.

You'll find more and more tutorials in these pages in future. For instance, in
this issue you'll find 'how-to' articles on C and Basic programming. MIDI.
MessyDOS, AmigaDOS. database analysis and setting up a DTP system. Future
articles will look at graphics, page layout, sequencing... you name it.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

LETTERS

continued from page 13

out that there is more than one type
of beginner. Those who have not
touched a computer before, those
who have used non-Amiga
computers before and those who
know how to program on other

machines. I am in this last category

and find the series Ideal.

The articles show me how to
make use of the Amiga operating
system without patronising my
programming ability. By all means

have tutorial on how to program.

But cater for one type of beginner at
a time, by keeping the two articles
separate. Otherwise one group of
readers will be in at the deep end'
and rest will feel patronised.

P K Attwood

St. Peter

Jersey

SINCE YOU ASK

Having heard that the European
Computer Entertainment Show has

been cancelled, could you tell me If
there any other shows being held
before Christmas?

H.imish Shah

Frlern Barnet

London

Bit of a coincidence that you ask that
Hamish. because only this morning
our ever commercially minded
publisher, Greg, grabbed me by the
ear and gave me a gentle reminder
which went something like this:

"If you forget to plug our World of
Commodore Show mercilessly in this
issue you're sacked. Remember:
November 15-17, Earls Court 2. And
print this advert for good measure.
Onwards, upwards, bigger, better.

more." And then he wandered off to
write lots of letters to trade
magazines. Greg's advert, telling you
all about the show and how
unmissable it is, is on page 110.

GREEN ADVICE

With the recent concerns for the
environment, I think computer
companies should give their support
to this matter. I don't mean that
these companies should start giving
their profits away to such
organisations as Greenpeace -

there is a simpler way. Cut down on
large boxes and other packaging.

Many titles for the Amiga, be
they serious or entertainment
applications, come in big, bulky
boxes which really aren't necessary
to house the product. Usually the
excuse is that a large manual is
required, but reducing the size of
the print would mean smaller books
and, ultimately, less packaging.

If companies do wish to help the
environment, they could at least
give this idea a try.

Stuart N Hardy
Sheffield

To be honest Stuart, the
environmental impact of cardboard
boxes is pretty much nil. The trees
which make cardboard are farmed
just like any other crop, mainly in
Scandinavia. And of course they're
fully biodegradable. What would be
nice is if there could be an agreed
standard size for boxes, so they all
looked neat and tidy on the shelf.

COLOUR CHECK OUT

Would you please ask Gary Whfteley
to double check a couple of the

statements he made in his article
on Rombo's Complete Colour
Solution {Amiga Shopper 5).

1. "Romeo has also bundled
Photon Paint 2 in the package." The
package I purchased in May had
version 1 included which, among
other things, does not animate.

2. "You can always load files
into Deluxe Paint III." Every time I
try to do this i get a message:
"Sorry cannot load HAM pictures".

If Gary knows how to get round
these problems I would be pleased
to hear It. as I thought I would have
to patiently wait for my Deluxe
Paint IV to arrive before I could
animate video pictures grabbed with
Rombo's package.

Les Rushbrook

Stevenage

Herts

I'm afraid we were wrong on both
counts: it is the original Photon Paint
included in the package, and, of
course. Deluxe Paint III cannot
handle HAM images. As you say.
Deluxe Paint IV, which is now out,
will solve your problems.

MISERLY LETTER

If this letter is published. I will earn
£5. However. I will have to pay the
£4.99 bank fee to get my cash in
good old Norwegian currency. Would
It not be better if all foreign readers
could add the prize money to their
subscription? So. for example, they
would receive two or three copies
more, without having to pay the
additional bank fee.

Karl Ivar Dahl

Llllehammer

Norway

Not all our foreign readers have
subscriptions. We hope to start
offering a gift instead of a fiver in the
future: meanwhile, your cheque for
Ip is in the post.

ONE PLUS ONE IS...

With regard to the subscription ad
on page 61 of issue 5. 1 can save
time! I can save trouble! I'm
guaranteed my copy! I'll even get a
free gift! But it wont be less than I
would pay at a newsagent.

My 10-year-old son tells me that
12 x 99p = £11.88, not £11.98.
Less would be £11.87. I've
subscribed anyway. Quality is worth
the extra.

Ian Thomson
Balmedle
Aberdeen

We've bought the subs department a
pocket calculator, so it shouldn't
happen again.

GETTING THE FAX

I have the occasional need to use a
fax machine, but not often enough
to justify the cost of owning one. I
have an idea for a cheap, cut-down
version and I would appreciate your
comments on it.

It would be a self-contained
unit, with the modem part of a fax
machine connected to the Amiga
via the RS232 port It would also
have a controlled mains socket,
with an override switch for normal
use and sending of faxes, and a fax
received indicator.

The principle of operation is that
upon detecting an incoming fax
signal the mains socket, into which
the Amiga (and probably Its

On the
C side

There's no such thing as
the perfect language, but.

I would like to comment on Mr Pellatt's letter
concerning C and Modulo 2. First I would like to
state that I wish only to address certain issues
raised in the letter, I have no wish to start a "my
language is better than yours" debate as we are
all much too civilised for that, and the selection
of a programming language is a personal choice.
Mr Pellatt says that it is impossible to write
reliable programs In C; I must disagree with this.
It Is possible to write reliable and maintainable
programs in C. and I do so both at home and at
work. One of the problems is that C is a free-
format language and as such program style can
be wide open to abuse by neophyte
programmers. A maintainable program, in my
opinion, is one that makes good use of program
style, function decomposition, data privacy
through correct use of scope and block
structure, and Judicious use of comments. All of
this is possible in C. In fact maintainability,
reliability and structure are more the function of
the programmer than the programming language,
a programming language is fust a tool for the
programmer's use. A language that Imposes few
style restrictions of Its own can be widely
abused by the wrong sort of programmers, but
that's not the fault of the language. Before I

even started using high level languages. I was
writing structured programs In assembly
language - believe me, It Is possible! Conversely
It is also possible to write very unstructured
code in the so-called structured languages.

Concerning C's use of special characters
and symbols. I feel that whatever syntax a
programming language uses is irrelevant, as
(just like a human language) once mastered, the
syntax of a program that adheres to good style
can be understood with little difficulty. What use
Is meaningful English to a foreign programmer
who does not understand a word of English?

Concerning mixing variable types, I
personally am not happy with any language that
does not let you mix data types as this can
make expressing certain programming problems
extremely difficult. For example, my field of work
Is Image processing using transputers where 8-
blt grey-scale images are represented as C
'unsigned chars', thus a 512 by 512 image
requires 256.000 bytes of memory store. Many
image processing operations make use of
normalised histograms to manipulate data, and
these histograms are typically arrays of type
double whose sum value is 1.0 and so must use
floating point data types. How would a language

1 A AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1 991

LETTERS

peripherals) is plugged, would
become live, the unit would send a
wait signal to the sender of the fax
while the boot disk, which you have

remembered to leave In dfO:. sets
up the Amiga. This then turns off

the wait signal, starts to receive
data and save it to disk.

After the sender has
disconnected, the Amiga finishes Its
work, turns off the mains socket via
the RS232 link and finally goes
back to sleep.

Faxes to be sent would have to
be typed in. or drawn using a paint
program, although some things like
bills or receipts would require a
hand scanner. The software could
handle the dialling out and tie
together the input material whether
typed, drawn or scanned. The
market for the unit would consist of
any self-booting computer with an
RS232 port.

R Brady

West Molesey

Surrey

Similar devices do exist for other
machines. For instance, there is a
Macintosh add-on which allows you
to dial up a remote Mac. switch it on
with the special modem, and then
copy any files you like. Certainly
there is no reason in principle why it
could not be done. However, the cost
of a fax modem and the hardware to
switch on the Amiga wouldn't be
vastly cheaper than, say. an Amstrad
fax. Nevertheless, if someone builds
such a thing, do let us know.

SINISTER LETTER

Have you noticed how biased the
A500 is against us left-handed

users? I would never consider
getting a hard drive. It would take
up the space that I use for the
mouse, and get completely In the
way of my external drive. The same
thing goes for freezer cartridges,
and any hardware that uses the left
edge connector.

Why doesn't someone produce
an extension lead that would enable
any hardware to be moved to the
back of the machine? I realise that
the power would need to be boosted
in some way, and I don't know how
It could be achieved - but it is
possible, isn't it?

David Carter

Woking

Surrey

I don't see why not (cue dozens of
letters explaining exactly why not).
Are there any other ways that the
Amiga southpaws are unfairly
discriminated against?

RADIO RADIO

Wow! Radio modems! Love it! But
wouldn't it be possible for those of
us without a radio licence to use an
ordinary shortwave receiver, a
circuit to clean up the signal and a
sound sampler to just listen In? It
would give a cheap, if non-
participant, insight into radio
comms. Perhaps Cliff could set a
Code Conundrum to decode Morse?

Mark Bunbidge

Larkefield

Kent

In theory, yes it's possible. However,
most of the bands used for this sort
of transmission are not covered by a
normal shortwave receiver - you'd

have to buy a special, rather
expensive receiver. Another problem
is that, according to a radio amateur
I know, it's actually illegal to monitor
many radio wavebands without a
licence. Perhaps someone more 'in
the know* could correct us if he's
wrong about that?

PASCAL PRIMER

I'd quite like to see a series of
tutorials on Pascal as I'm going
back to Poly to finish my degree in
September, and that's the language
they teach where I'm studying.
Hopefully. HiSoft will have got their
fingers out and produced the final
version of Pascal by then and I'll be
able to work at home as well as
college, but In the meantime a
'review' of a PD Pascal would come
In very handy indeed.

Jon Jeffery

Caterham

Surrey

We hope to be taking a close look at
the numerous public domain
languages in a future issue. But you
shouldn't have long to wait for HiSoft
Pascal; it's due out in October "or
soon after".

SCANDINAVIAN SYSOP

How do you set up and operate an
Amiga bulletin board or user net?
We here In Iceland are thinking
about it, but haven't the faintest
idea how!

Freyr Njardurk
Iceland

Another one for the future features
list there. Freyr. Obviously it takes
time to get these features written,

and to find space in the mag for
them, but we do listen to your
requests so please carry on sending
them in!

BASIC THOUGHTS

After the kids had finally gone to
bed I started to read my new
Amiga's manuals and generally find
my way around. Looking for the
Amiga Basic was the problem: the
manual said it was. along with Its
manual, elsewhere in the package.
But no. I couldn't find it anywhere.

I phoned the shop, and they
advised me that it was no longer
included and to buy AMOS. Why
should I? I phoned Commodore
Customer Services, they confirmed
it was no longer included because it
was old, slow and third parties
made better programs. I was very
upset about this, because it seemed
I had. as it stood, bought a very
expensive games console. I drew
their attention to the manual but all
I got was "It shouldn't be there".
Some customer services!

Steven Boyd

Wickford

Essex

I'm not sure many will mourn the
passing of Amiga Basic, but it does
seem a bit thoughtless to leave
references to it in the manual! CD

Send your letters to:

Stuart Anderton. Talking Shop,

Amiga Shopper, 30 Monmouth

Street. Bath BA1 2BW or

e-mail them to amshopper®

clx.compulink.co.uk.

which did not allow mixed data types In
expressions cope with calculating a normalised
image histogram, as there is an implicit type
char to type double conversion in calculating the
histogram? You could of course have your
integer (0-255) image data stored as double
type but this would require over two million
bytes of storage for a 512 by 512 image,
assuming type double requires eight bytes to
represent it, and anyway pixels would have to be
converted to double types In the first place.

The Inmos C compiler I program the
transputers with has excellent diagnosis and will
warn you of problems concerning mixed type
arithmetic, such as loss of precision when
converting from type double to type char. To
eliminate this warning if this conversion Is really
what was intended, you use a type cast which
also has the side-effect of documenting the
program. I.e. reminding you that the expression
is a mixed expression. Other compilers could
learn a thing to two from the Inmos compiler's
standard of diagnosis messages, but this
Illustrates that code diagnosis Is a function of
the compiler and not the programming language.

Concerning C's lack of array bounds
checking, C was designed primarily for writing

operating systems (Unix) and real-time systems
where features like bounds checking can add
too much time overhead. If a program really does
need bounds checking then it is just as easy for
the programmer to add it. you could even write
your own macros to do this. C supports dynamic
memory allocation, so it Is Impossible for the
compiler to perform bounds checking on
dynamically allocated arrays as the size of such
arrays is unknown at compile time.

I have mentioned in this letter that the
choice of programming language is, where
possible, a personal choice. I chose C after
years of programming real-time problems in
assembly language. Up until I found C I had
always been horrified by Inefficient code
produced by high level languages, which in my
line of work Is just as important as
mantainability. C allows me to write structured,
maintainable, code efficient programs with very
little overhead when compared to assembler.
This is all relevant for the Amiga, whose multi-
tasking, graphical environment imposes a lot of
overheads. There can't be many people who like
to twiddle their thumbs waiting about for
sluggish programs, no matter how well they are
written in whatever language.

Finally I would like to finish this long-winded
letter by saying that any programming language
has its merits and drawbacks and there is
always room for improvement. Just as Modula 2
Is an improvement on Pascal, so C++ is an
improvement on C and is well worth
investigating. I wrote this letter because I felt
that Mr Pellatts letter was unjust towards C
and I wanted to address some of the issues
raised, for the benefit of readers who are
unfamiliar with C and who might now have the
wrong impression of the language. C is often
criticised by high-level language purists who sit
in academic ivory towers and who do not have to
dirty their hands tackling programming problems
associated with the real world.

DA Cook

Uandysul

Dyfed

I'm sure Messrs Kemigan and Ritchie are grateful
for the spinted defence. You'll find more on the
merits and otherwise of Modula 2 on page 97.
Despite letters, phone calls, faxes and postcards
we still haven't had the requisite 20 requests for
a Modula 2 series; you have until the end of the
month to get yours in.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

GRAPHICS

"3D graphics is a big market
these days, so it's a bit hard to
make the right choice of
package. I'm here to help you
make that choice."

Phil South

' *

Phil South takes a look at a v/ide
range of the 3D graphics
packages available and evaluates
the best and worst of the batch

here was a time, and it really
wasn't so long ago, that all
my friends used to say "Why
do you spend so much time
playing with that computer when you
could be having fun?" At the time,
the computers I was using weren't
that impressive. The graphics looked
like a bad mosaic, and the sound
was like a doorbell whose battery
was running down.

But then I got an Amiga, and I
showed all these sceptical friends
something. They gaped, and most of
them went out practically the next
day and bought one themselves.
Believe it or not. what I showed them
was simply a very early demo called
Juggler, a simple ray-traced
animation created with a pre-release
version of what was to be the
Amiga's first 3D program. Sculpt 3D.
This was a real thing that people
could grasp, a real application, and
graphics that could zonk your
eyeballs out at 15 paces.

From then on computer graphics,
especially those on the Amiga, have
never looked back. Everyone can
produce sparklingly realistic 3D
rendered pictures in the privacy of
their own home, and for not much
money either. The programs we'll be
looking at are Imagine (Impulse).
Real 3D (Activa). 3D Professional
(Progressive Peripherals), and Draw
40 (Adspec). all of which represent
the best of what is available in 3D
packages in the UK today.

WHAT IS 3D?

There are many different sorts of 3D
software available for the Amiga.
Some allow you to create 3D vector
graphics for games or demos, but

that's not true 3D graphics. True 3D
programs allow you to manipulate
objects in space, light them, give
them a surface texture and colour,
and put them in a setting made of
other objects. All of the 3D programs
I mention here are animation
stations as well, allowing you to

rrontn n Qr-qunnro of tramc... WtWQ

the objects, lighting and camera'
move exactly the way you want them
to. These frames can later be
combined together to make an
animation, either as an ANIM file or
similar compressed format, or sent
frame-by-frame to video tape or to a

counts. If someone says that a
program is a full ray tracer and all it
turns out are gritty-looking low-res
HAM images, or perhaps not even
HAM. then it's not going to be any
good, is it? Most of the programs
mentioned here have a high
resolution mode, and almost all can
send to a frame buffer or 24-bit
display card.

Every animator or digital artist
has a favourite program, and this
depends on what they've been using
and for how long. I know some
people who swear by 3D
Professional, whereas I find it a

One of Real 3D's Impressive features Is the way that It copes with bump
mapping, producing effects like the one shown here.

frame buffer and from there to a
video tape.

WHAT'S THE BEST?

The best kind of 3D software is a
package which makes you feel as
though you can reach into the guts of
the machine and pull the objects
around with your bare hands. If the
modeller feels like it's fighting you.
then it can't be that good. Features-
wise it's the image quality that

complete waste of time. That's the
personal preference factor, and you
can't get around it. You just have to
agree to disagree.

WHAT IS MAPPING?

Mapping is the technique whereby a
surface texture and colour are
wrapped around an object to give it
the characteristics (roughness,
smoothness. Dumpiness) of a real-
world object. Not all the objects you

see are perfectly smooth and shiny.
Some have a skin texture - human
beings, for example! Bump mapping
is the art and science of putting little
bumps on the surface of an object. If
the object is shiny these bumps will
catch the light, and in any case they
would have to cast a shadow if they
were real. The program takes an IFF
file as its model - usually a
monochrome image of a pattern
using a number of different shades -
and maps this to the shape. Cycled
airbrush patches on the screen
which have been cut out as brushes,
for instance, normally work for most
irregular bumpy tricky surfaces like
oranges or other sorts of fruit. But
you can do nice regular checked
patterns too. which can be very
effective.

THE 24-BIT REVOLUTION

The biggest advance in the last few
years has been in the field of display
graphics, and 24-bit cards have been
leading the way. In the wake of such
high performance engines as the
Amiga Centre Scotland's Harlequin
card come devices such as the
HAM-E from Black Belt Systems, the
Colorourst from MAST, and the
Firecracker from Impulse which all
deliver the same number of colours -
16-odd million of them. Also coming
along real soon now is the
GFXEngine from Solid State Leisure,
but at the time of writing that is still
in the beta testing stage. So high
quality display is here, fast rendering
times are here, what else? Well, a
fast processor of some kind is very
necessary if you want to do any kind
of intensive 3D work, and essential if
you want to do animation.

RENDERING FOR VIDEO

Putting animations together for video
is best done using ArtBeat's
Simpatica system. Although priced a
little out of the amateur market, the
equipment is good enough to warrant
a look if you're semi-pro or even just
rich with an interest in computer
graphics.

In most cases, if you're doing
fast moving graphics you don't need
24-bit quality; HAM will be good
enough to do the job. But if the job
needs more, then you'll have to
stump up for 24-bit... although truth
be told you could easily use
something like the HAM-E to take you
up to 256 colours and meet the
problem part way.

So. let's look at the programs...

1 L AMIGA SHOPPER ♦ ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

18-25 MIPS

68882 Maths Co-processor

Compatible with Workbench 1.3

Up to ten times the performance of the A300Q

Installation software disk

sy to install

Hardware select switch to enable or disable
68040 mode and run original processor

v'J
♦ Comes with 4MB

GRAPH CS

Imagine is an extremely powerful package, which allows numerous effects to
be created.

(witiwd fro*" poqe 16

EASE OF USE

Imagine is not the easiest of
programs to use. but it is actually
simpler than it first appears. Once
you've followed the tutorials in the
handbooks you can easily render up
some objects and create animations,
but unlike some other programs you
can't just boot it up and work out
what you have to do by looking at the
various screens. And that's the other
thing, there are an amazing number
of screens in the program, and this
can be a bit bewildering at first.
Imagine is simply one of those
programs where you have to read the
manual. Suspend your need for
instant gratification, plod through the
tutorials and you'll be an expert in no
time.

As far as instant gratification
goes, Real 3D is top of the heap. It's
bhndingly obvious at any one point in
time what you have to do. and there
are only three screens to contend
with: the modeller, the renderer and
the wire frame window. You can, and
I did. just open the program, create a
few primitives and render them
without the slightest knowledge of
the program. Indeed, it's so easy to
use that I rarely consult the manual
at oil, CAGCpt to clarify the fine
details of a control or menu that I've
been playing by ear since I got the
program. Intuitive is the word for it.
and this means that if you've used
an Amiga program before, using Real
3D is second nature.

3D Professional only really has
one screen to speak of. but other
windows are opened over the top of
the main screen when you want to
use greater resolutions than the
plain 8 or 16colour medium res
control screen. It's hard to see
what's going on for much of the time.
as the program seems to lock up"
for great periods of time without
giving the user any feedback as the
what's happening. And unless you've
read the manual you wouldn't have
the slightest idea what any of the
myriad tiny buttons and icons
actually do on the toolbox window.
So. intuitive? Not so. I'd say.

Draw 4D is another case of the
ever-circling miniature
incomprehensible icons, with no real
sense of what you are actually doing
at any one time. You could say that a
manual is essential for
understanding a program as complex
as a 3D program, but I would say
that in most cases I'd back a
program you can understand just by
looking at it against a complex mess
any day.

CHECKOUT |

EASE

OF USE

Imagine

• •••

Real 3D

3D Professional • • •

Draw 4D

• ••

In Imagine, animations can be
rendered either to an ANIM file, to a
proprietary Imagine animation file, or
to separate IFF or RGBN files. And
the animation is done automatically
from the program. In the past, some
programs required you to set up a
scene, render it for six hours, move
the objects or lights, render it for six
hours... and so on for the rest of
your waking life. Now you can set the
thing in motion and go away. The
animation is governed very
professionally by paths, and the
objects, cameras and lights will
follow these 3D paths through space
when you tell them to go. and take
the amount of time you want them to
take to get there.

Real 3D is another path-based
program, but it is much easier to use
and readily assimilable than the
Imagine method. This illustrates
sharply the difference in approach
taken by the two programs - it's like
the difference between a CAD
program and a eel animation
program. If you're a cartoonist you
might not have a really sharp idea
about what it is you want, but you'd
like to try a few things first. If you're
an industrial designer you have a
plan, and you want to render as
accurate a shape as you can from
your precise specification. Real 3D
lets you cartoon around before you
end up with your final image, and
although Imagine has improved in
this respect, it's still far from being
as easy to twiddle with as a Real 3D
image. Real 3D doesn't have much
in the way of wire frame previews,
but there you go - you can't have
everything.

Like most of 3D Professionafs
features, animation is feature-packed

on paper, but in use is very clunky
and difficult to get the most from.
You can set up scripts to create
animations, and you can use and
create ANIM-format animations, but I
wouldn't like to spend my life doing
it. Although, having said that, the
way that the program uses key
frames to set up the start and end of
an animation, and then 'tweens
between the two. is quite good
(although a little slow). Nice wire
frame previews too. but this is done
better in Imagine.

Draw 4D has appallingly slow
animation creation; on the other
hand, animation isn't really
supposed to be the program's forte.
But then again, I'm not actually sure,
even after using the program to
make things, exactly what Draw4D's
forte is! It produces very nice
ProOrawformat clips for you to paste
into ProPage. but apart from that the
facilities are mixed. Draw 4D is
placed at a very odd point in the 3D
world, part way between DTP. ANIM
and video, doing none of the jobs
really very well, apart from the DTP
application. And although the new
'Pro' version, yet to be released
when I wrote this piece, features
much faster performance, you need
a much faster performance machine
to run it on anyway, so this becomes
somewhat irrelevant.

CHECKOUT

ANIMATION

Imagine
Real 3D
3D Professional
Draw 4D

Real 3D Is a "blindfngly obvious" program to use; its powerful commands allow
the creation of exceptionally impressive graphics such as this one.

1 AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

GRAPHICS

MODELLER

Imagine has a superb and fully
featured modeller, and one which
wouldn't be out of place on any high-
end dedicated graphics machine,
although it can be stow at times. The
windows can be seen all at once, or
can be switched to show a single
view at a single keystroke. Although
the redrawing of wire-frame and
shaded views tend to slow it down a
bit. these can be turned off (or at
least the effect minimised), to allow
you to really whip along.

Most of the lime all three of Real
3D's views are on screen at once.
But they can be made to enlarge so

they overlap, and each frame can be
called up just by clicking on it.
Redraws are fast, and all the objects
are usually displayed in different
colours, so you can really see where
one ends and another begins.
Setting the camera viewpoint is the
simplest of all, as you just zoom the
camera around on the wire-frame
view, click on a button like taking a
snapshot, and there it is. It's more
like composing a picture in a
viewfinder than cooly deciding where
you are going to position the camera
from looking at a plan of the area.

3D Professional allows you to
decide between a four screen all-at-
once view or a single view, but as far
as I can see you are limited to the
same size of view
for each. The redraw
is so slow as to be
completely
unusable. If you find
yourself in a
resolution mode
which you don't
want it's Quicker to
reboot and start
again.

Draw 4D's
modeller is bizarre,
and I found that
most of my time was
spent watching the object spinning
around stupidly in the middle of the
screen. This gives you a very keen
idea of what the object looks like
from all around it, but is no good if
you can't stop it from spinning
without accidentally starting some
other process going instead. I hope
this is all fixed in the new version.

An object In 3D Professional.

CHECKOUT 1

MODELLER 1

Imagine

Real 3D

3D Professional

• ••

Draw 4D

• ••

Imagine allows you to create
beautiful images with the minimum
of effort - and they render very fast
by post Sculpt standards. Control
over transparency, colour, texture,
shading, specularity and lighting is
both subtle and powerful; the control
is limited only by your knowledge of
the program and its menus - hence
the attention you should pay to the
manual before you start.

Real 3D is a piece of cake all
round, with some very powerful and
striking effects achievable very
simply. Like all things to do with this
package you can work out what you
have to do simply by looking at the
screen, and only the more subtle
effects require you to examine the
fine print in the manual.

3D Professional isn't a ray-tracer,
which makes you wonder why it is
always pitched against Imagine and
Sculpt as a genuine 3D modelling
engine. It is, in a real sense, a
modeller not a renderer, although a
proper rendering module is
supposedly in the works as we
speak. But having separate modules
to cope with such integrated tasks
as modelling and tracing is foolish in
the extreme. And as the thing is
likely to cost about $500 anyway, it's
a wonder anyone bothers with it at
all, in my view.

Draw 4D is
very poor,
although I
have seen
some

screenshots
which do give
a different
impression.
How you'd get
such subtle
mapping and
rendering in
this program,
and indeed
how many years you'd have to wait to
get them there, I don't like to say,
though. The use of this program as a
renderer is limited by your machine's
RAM. as the program's memory
management is very poor - it
seemingly allocates bottomless
chunks of memory for no real
purpose.

CHECKOUT

RENDERING

Imagine
Real 3D
3D Professional
Draw 4D

This is an image which is in the process of being created In Imagine, using
the wire-frame view.

DOCUMENTATION

Imagine has terrific documentation.
Two booklets take you through a
bunch of tutorials and reference
material respectively, with the barest
minimum of flourish and fluff. I'd
have preferred the books to be spiral
bound, as you can't leave them open
at the page you are referring to at
any point, being rather thick and stiff,
but they are lucidly and carefully
written to help you get the best out
of the program. Tech support is
available in the UK from the vendor.
Alternative Image, so you have got
someone to call to get you past the
trouble spots. Alternative Image also
supplies The Imagine Companion
book and the Imagine Tutorial Video,
both of which are companion works
to the Imagine manual.

Real 3D has a nicely presented -
if somewhat garish - manual, with a
supplement which details the new
features in version 1.3. It's spiral
bound, which is my preference for
reference books. Although flexible of
cover, the books are a little stiff in
the translation from Scandinavian, so
they suffer from not being very clear
about what they are talking about
once in a while. However, they're
generally pretty good taken as a
whole, and contain lots of pictures
and diagrams to help you through the
tricky bits. Once again, tech support
comes in the form of UK-based
Alternative Image, so a friendly word
on the phone is all it takes to get you
past any snags.

3D Professional's packaging is
filled with docs and disks when you
open it. giving you the impression
that you've really got value for your
money. But although the
documentation is very well produced
and written, it's just padding to add
to the value. You can find out what
you need to know about the program,
sure enough, but the program fights
back so much it's hard to keep your
interest up. And if something goes
amiss, there isn't any way you can
talk back to the book, which you do
feet the need for sometimes. Tech
support is based in the USA, so no
help is there when you need it. And
although there is a video in the pack
if you buy direct from the USA, it's
useless as it's in NTSC format.
Draw 4D comes with a thin
booklet which describes the use of
the menus and the features, and
also a bit on the philosophy behind
the program which, although very
worthy I'm sure, didn't convince me
that this was a product worth buying
over. say. Real 3D.

(Minted mmm 21

CHECKOUT

DOCUMENTATION

Imagine

Real 3D

3D Professional

• ••

Draw 4D

• •

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 19<?1

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open 9-5.30 Monday - Saturday
open 10-4 Sunday

sH****-

**<*

%&&*

•SB*

GRAPHICS

JARGO

BUSTING

24-blt - 2 to the power 24 bits, ie 16.777.216 bits. So a 24-bit colour

system will give you over 16 million different colours to play
with.

ANIM - The IFF animation format.

Brush - A clipped area of an IFF graphic created in Deluxe Paint or a

similar Amiga graphics package.

Bump mapping - The process by which you can apply a realistic bumpy
surface to an object.

Camera - The viewpoint of the observer in a 3D scene.

Chip RAM - The base level memory suppled with the machine, which the
Amiga uses for graphics. See also Fast RAM.

Cycling -

Face -

A process used by certain graphics packages where the
colours in the palette are continuously changed during a
drawing operation.

A usually flat area on the side of an object; a plane of the
surface.

continued f'om page 1 9

Fast

RAM - Any extra memory which is not Chip RAM.

Framestore - Digital storage capable of storing a complete frame of video.
Used in digital effects generators.

Genlock -

HAM

IFF-

Mapping -

Mix -

NTSC-

Object
PAL-

Point-

RGB

A way of linking one video source (the Amiga, for example) to
another (like video tape) in order to synchronise their signals
together to allow effects including overlay (key) between the
two sources.

Hold And Modify is an Amiga graphics mode allowing all 4.096
colours to be displayed at once, with certain restrictions.

Interchange File Format is a means by which data from
different graphics or sound sampling programs can be saved
in a compatible way.

The process of contouring a picture or texture around an
object's surface.

The process whereby one image is gradually faded up across
another which is fading down. Also referred to as a Dissolve'.

Stands for National Television Standards Committee. This is
the name for the TV colour coding system used in the USA
and some other countries. It has 525 lines, running at 60
fields and 30 frames per second. It is often, and perhaps
unfairly, japed at as Never Twice the Same Colour by PAL (qv)
standard users.

A 3D shape.

The other main TV colour coding system (with the exception of
France's SECAM system), which is in use around the world
and was developed in Britain. PAL refers to Phase Alternate
Line. In fact, there are several hybrid PAL systems in use. all

of which are slightly different.

A face is bounded by lines, and each line has a point at either
end.

Red. Green and Blue components of a video signal.

Time base corrector, or TBC - An electronic device for correcting any timing
errors in the video signal produced by a video tape recorder so
that it can be used by a video switcher.

Wlpe-

This describes a visual transition between two images, where
the edge of one progressively obscures or reveals the other.

TOOLS

Imagine has an almost bewildering
range of tools for the extrusion,
stretching and shaping of shapes.
Although less of a 'what if program
than Real 3D, there are still some
effects which you can't get in any
other program before or since.

Real 3D'$ tools are simple to
use. and although there aren't many
on view as buttons to press there are
more on the menus, and once you've
delved into the program a bit you
notice more and
more of them.
The whole of
Real 3D is
designed like
this, so you can
start simply and
learn as you go.
Check the
manual when
you hit a snag
or don't know
how to do
something and
there will
probably be a
tool to do it
somewhere.

Once you've familiarised yourself
with the basics you can go on to the
more complex stuff later.

3D Professional requires you to
specify the precise number of
vertices, points and so on that you
plan to use before you begin a
shape, and frankly this is a very
nearly unworkable solution to the
problem of creating objects from
scratch. Although there are a lot of
tools, they are crammed on the
screen rather, so like Draw 4D (see
below) you have to be very careful
you don't click on the wrong one. It
sounds silly, but it has happened to
me numerous times.

Draw 4D has lots of tools, but
they all seem to be delayed in their
application - so you are generalty
unsure if the tool you just clicked is
actually doing anything. From this
point of view the program is
confusing to use. and the tools are
rather cluttered around the screen.
as if the designers couldn't decide
which would be the most frequently
used.

Real 3D's tools are simple to use, and
provide some powerful effects.

24-BIT

Imagine has perfect high quality
support for the Firecracker board,
which should be out 'real soon now'.
The program mates up with it and
provides you with superb
professional quality output in either
HAM. IFF 24 bit or Impulse's own
RGBN format.

Real 3D allows on-line support
for the ACS Harlequin card, which
actually appears on the menu. Just
click on that, and your Amiga sends
the image to the 24-bit card right

away instead of just
to the screen. Then
you can save it out
to disk - a hard
disk, since most 24-
bit pics will be over
1Mb in size!

3D Professional
is only really 24 bit
compatible after
you've rendered the
pictures in another
program and sent
them to a frame
store of some kind.
No on-line 'whiz,
bang, there it is*
support.
Draw 4D has no 24-bit support
as yet. although the 'Pro' version will
have it. Actually, it's a good job this
version doesn't support 24-bit, as
the pictures look bad on a normal
display. Goodness knows what
horrors 24-bit clarity would bring!

ECKOUT |

24-

BIT

Imagine

• •••

Real 3D

• •••

3D Professional

• •

Draw 4D

ECKOUT

TOOLS

Imagine
Real 3D
3D Professional
Draw 4D

PRICE VALUE

Imagine weighs in at £223.25. which
means that it is excellent value for
money - provided that you are willing
to put the time in to learn how to use
it properly. Busy people may like to
fork out the extra money for the
convenience of using Real 3D Pro.
There are two versions of the
Real 3D program. Beginners and
Pro/Turbo. The small version lacks
some of the features, and comes in
at £142; and the larger Pro version
reviewed (also available in an '030
Turbo version) costs £409. This is a
stiff wedge of money for one program
- more than the computer in most

(oatMwed M poft 22

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

GRAPHICS

continued from page 21

OTHER ALTERNATIVES

Some of the programs I thought of Including in
this roundup are either too old or not available
yet In the UK. The following is a list of the other
programs available, and a short discussion of
why they weren't Incuded in the main roundup.

• Sculpt Animate 4D (Byte By
Byte)

As I said at the beginning. Sculpt was the very first
Amiga 3D program, and although this version is
ultra-professional it is too expensive and slow to
compete against the likes of Real 3D. When I say
rendering times are slow. I mean rt. I once
rendered a scene for three days solid before I
aborted it. due to the fact that the thing had only
got down to the 75th or 76th scan line on the
screen by that time! Not really a professional tool,
unless you like wrestling with your software, or you
own NASA's computing facility.

• Reflections (Markt * Technik)

A German product which, although having
excellent features, is not out yet in the UK. Gary
Whiteley already has a copy of the German
version, and will be looking at it in depth at some
stage, as he's had a lot of contact with the
producers of the program. This is the program that
Tobias Richter uses to produce those wonderful
Star Trek animations that he does. The mapping
and shading of objects is really excellent, and it
remains to be seen what price and level the

that HB Marketing may well pick it up. It's a very
odd program though, and has more in common
with 3D Professional and Draw 4D than
Reflections or Real 3D.

• Tracer (PD)

A very hard to use and limited PD effort, but with
strangely sophisticated features - like the ability
to map an IFF brush over the objects or surface. If
you want to really get to grips with numbers and
stuff like that, then reach for Fred Rsh disk
number 66.

• Videoscape 3D (Oxxi Aegis)

Another oldie, and some would say goodie. I newer
really got on with it myself, to tell you the truth,
although some folks (Gary Whiteley for example)
have become real experts. The basic problem was
that you had to supply the thing with a list of
numbers describing your object, which you had to
work out on paper. It was all too tedious, until
object file transfers became possible with the
likes of Interchange. Then objects could be
created using the brilliant editor of one program,
and rendered and animated using the rendering
part of another program.

• Callgari (Octree Software)

Both a new and current product and yet an old
product at the same time. The professional
version of the program costs thousands of dollars,

Reflections has had superb advance word-of-mouth from Germany.

program wilt be at when it reaches these shores.
Whatever the price (and it's extremely cheap in
Germany) it'll be very much worth it.

• Turbo Silver (Impulse)

The old program by the makers of Imagine. The
program was good, but hard to use. Imagine fixes
all the things that were wrong with Turbo Silver.
and adds things that Turbo never even thought of.

• Painter 3D (Adept)

Another German product whose fate in the UK has
yet to be decided, although my guess would be

and the home user version is so cut down as to
be useless. But there are good things about this
program, like its excellent interface and its fast
rendering, it's not a ray-tracer in any form, but it
does perform light-source shading to a number of
resolutions. Basically it's a good program, but one
which has been in development for so long that
it's hard to see how it can incorporate all the
latest features the others now have.

The first magazine on the Amiga I ever bought
in 1987 had a feature on this "great new"
program. I didn't even see a demo version of it
until the year before last. I understand that the

Painter 3D is a German program, which has yet
to find a UK distribution channel.

manufacturer is sorting out some new distribution
in the UK now, as it has been a little hard to find
lately, so when that's sorted out I should be able
to have a look at it for you.

• Lightwave (NewTek)

The ongoing Video Toaster story is still ongoing,
so I won't bore you by re-iterating what I've said
before. OK I will. Lightwave (the Video Toaster's
3D software) is very impressive indeed, but
although it's an excellent modeller and renderer,
beating the pants off many of the programs
reviewed here, it's not yet available in the UK so
there not much point in looking at it in a buyer's
guide. However, when it does come out over here,
watch this space, as we'll be the first to see it.
Check out the European exclusive review of the
NTSC-version Video Toaster that Gary Whiteley and
I did last issue for taste of thing to come.

• Pixel 3D (Axiom Software)

This program takes an IFF file and turn in into an
extruded 3D object, which is not as stupid as it
sounds. If you have a shape you want to render,
just draw it in Deluxe Paint or something similar
and run it through this excellent program. Very
useful for turning IFFs into 3D objects, which is
even more weird than it sounds!

• Interchange (Syndesis)

This takes a solid object from one 3D program file
format and turns it into another format, so that it
can be loaded and rendered in a different
program. So you could, for example, create pieces
using the modeller from Sculpt and use them in
Videoscape 3D. Interchange is a very sensible
addition to any 3D system, as most 3D programs
read more than one format.

• AMOS 3D (Europress Software)

A vector graphics module for the AMOS Basic
program, reviewed in this issue's AMOS column.

• 3D Construction Kit (Domark
Incentive)

This is an interactive version of the Freescape
system, from Incentive, which allows you to make
your own 3D games or simple shaded
environments. Easy to use but not very realistic.

(ontin»ed on paqe 24

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GRAPHICS

Draw 4t>. "nice enough, but too
slow for serious purposes."

continued from pwjc 22

cases, in fact, but it is worth it for
the clean simplicity of the product.
Obviously as part of a professional
setup, the price is negligible
compared to the rest of the
equipment.

3D Professionars US price of
around $500 has shrivelled over
here recently to £260.83 (+ VAT) in
the light of better and cheaper
programs like Imagine.

Draw 4D costs a middling
£149.95. As an add-on to a DTP
setup it is worth a look, but as a 3D
program at this price I'd consider
hard if it's really going to do the job.
Which to my mind it doesn't -
especially for video and animation.

CHECKOUT

PRICE VALUE

Imagine

• •• •

Real 3D

• •••

3D Professional

• ••

Draw 4D

• ••

OVERALL

Overall, Imagine is the most
professional of the programs tested,
and leads the field in this country for
high quality 3D rendering and
animation. In concert with the own-
brand Firecracker 24-bit board it
forms the basis of a professional 3D
system which has few competitors,
with the exception of the yet to be
released UK-format NewTek Video
Toaster. The Toaster is very good,
but until that hits these shores, you
are best off hitting the metal, chrome
and glass with Imagine.

Support for Real 3D is very high,
•nd both the writers and the
distributors in the UK are very keen
to show everyone concerned with the
buying and selling of this program
that it Is a simple and powerful piece

of software. This is
the one program I
tried that was
almost all things to
all men, lacking
the essential
subtlety of
Imagine, but
having enough
power all the way
up to 24-bit to
keep you with it for
long time to come,
from beginner to
professional
animator.
3D Professional is an expensive
and slightly old -fashioned program,
having more in common with
programs like Videoscape 3D (and
coming from a similar era too. I
seem to recall) than the more
modern programs with more features
and true ray tracing. Version 2 is out
in a couple of weeks, and from the
sound of it this will bring 3D
Professional into the eighties.
Unfortunately this is 1991. so that's
a bit of a shame.

Draw 4D is a very confused and
confusing program, which never
appears to know quite where it is or
what it's supposed to be doing with
itself. The Pro version is out very
soon, which will bring 24-bit
capability and is reputed to be a lot
faster off the mark. It also appears,
from what I've seen of it, to be a
more focussed program, which
knows a little more about the
market, and what it is exactly that it
is trying to do.

ECKOUT

OVERALL RATING

Imagine
Real 3D

3D Professional

ooooooooo

SHOPPING LIST

Draw 4D

£149.95

SUMMING UP

From the programs on offer, the best
are Real 3D and Imagine, and
although these programs are similar
in price one is more of a
commitment than the other. Real 3D
is a breeze to use and learn, while
Imagine is somewhat more tricky to
get the hang of. Real 3D has some
good features. Imagine has some
great features. It's a trade-off;
sometimes you need a little 3D,
sometimes you need a lot. Imagine
has a lot.

3D Professional and Draw 4D are
nice enough, but too slow for serious
purposes and a little too low-grade
and inflexible for really artistic
rendering. I'm sure that some would
disagree with me. but there you have
it. My opinion is based on long hours
sat at the computer, or rather not at
the computer but pacing up and
down waiting for things to render.
The key word here is fast. The faster
a program is. the happier I am -
especially when I'm testing a huge

Available from Surface UK

5 Rockware Avenue
Greenford
Middlesex UB6 OAA
n 081 566 6677

Real 3D -(Beginners) £142.00

Real 30 (Pro/Turbo) £409.00

Imagine £223.25

Available from Alternative Image

6 Lothair Road, Aylslone
Leicester LE2 7BQ

tr 0533 440041

3D Professional £260.83

Available from HB Marketing

Unit 3 Poyle 1 4

Newlods Olive

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number of them! So. having tried just
about every other one there is over
the years. Real 3D or Imagine are
the ones to go for, in my opinion.

My ideal setup would therefore
comprise Imagine, a Firecracker 24
board. Simpatica and a huge bank of
video effects, but if I have to I'll
settle for Real 3D rendering to a
Harlequin. If I wanted to keep costs
down, I'd send 24-bit files to my
HAM E board. CD

ANIM standard
1Mb needed

FEATURES

Real 3D Imagine

TABLE

3D Professional

Draw 4D

Y
Y

Y
Y
N
Y
Y

Y
Y

N (yet)
N (yet)

24-bit support

3D fonts
030 support
Anti-aliasing
ARexx

Y
Y

■

N
Y

N
N

Fades/Dissolves
HAM supported

Y
Y

N J

Genlock support

Standard Amiga f
Stencil, Mask or

onts N

Matte N

RIF standard
(Note: bear In mil

id that the new version of Draw 4D will have more features)

*iA AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

A &th %.

mmmmmuitt

w»

<«&

%fe

A brain

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Commodore

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• Complete with its own power supply unit (UK, US or EURO)

• Designed with A 1000 compatibility in mind

• Zero wait-states

• RAM test software

2Mb £269 4Mb £349 8Mb £519

CORTEX 8Mb RAM Expansion for the
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Fully implemented
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Uses standard 1M x
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2, 4, 6 or 8Mb
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2Mb£199 4Mb £289 6Mb £369 8Mb£449

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£59

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K/hH

A i 1

"Con computer simulations
paint an accurate image of the
red world? Let's see..."

Mark Smiddy

Mark Smiddy visits Mount St
Helens and Olympus Mons - all
v/ithout leaving the comfort of his
favourite armchair**.

Ihere are 3D rendering

engines and there are 3D

rendering engines, but they
all have one thing in common
- you have to create objects using
skill and imagination. VistaPro is
different: it provides a 3D engine
specifically designed with artists and
animators in mind; a system which
allows real places to be explored
from an almost limitless number of
viewpoints. Created by John Hinkley
and Brick Eksten of Hypercube,
VistaPro can take anyone on a tour
of the magnificent El Capitan in

Yosemite National Park or for a fly-
past of the 4.000km-long Valles
Marineris - the equivalent of the
Grand Canyon on the planet Mars.

FIRST THE GOOD NEWS...

Fans of these things may have seen
the original Vista receive rave
reviews already - but VistaPro is
different. Vista provided stunning
impressions of far-off lands, but
VistaPro will do it better, faster and
with more power than many ever
thought possible. Better still, it can
produce pictures without the nasty
jagged edges which tainted the
original, and display them in over 16
million colours - assuming that you

What is a vista?

BEGINNERS

START HERE

Chambers'
dictionary defines a vista thus: A
view or prospect; a mental view or
vision extending far into the past
or future, or any subject engaging
the thoughts. From the Latin,
visum, to see. For me, this sums
up VistaPro the software very well
Indeed.

Will I need an accelerated
machine?

Strictly speaking, no. However,
VistaPro will make use of well-
designed second processor cards
such as 25MHz 68020s. This will
reduce the rendering time - and
especially the drawing time -
noticeably. Nevertheless, to get
the best from the software you
really need a maths co-processor
(typically a 68881), which will
reduce the rendering time
dramatically. This is because the
thousands of floating point
calculations required will be
performed by the hardware and
not by the tortuously slow
software floating point libraries.

BEGINNERS

Wllllneeda
frame butler?

Not really. Frame buffers are the
preserve of professional studios
using Amlgas for things like
television programs. A standard
Amiga using Interlaced HAM
provides some very acceptable
results. Of course, rf you have a
B2000 and the necessary readies
to pop out and buy one, the extra
16-odd million colours will
certainly help!

Is a hard disk required?

Yes and no. Like most other
optional addons, a hard drive will
help enormously. You will need a
hard disk to use the animator,
because even a short animation is
likely to use several megabytes of
disk space. If you don't already
have a hard drive and want one to
use with WstaPro, go for the
fastest one you can afford; this
will effect the smoothness of the
finished animation. A standard
A590 will do at a pinch - see
Amiga Shopper Issue one for a
complete hard disk roundup.

have the correct hardware, of course.
In fact, VistaPro is capable of
drawing landscapes we tend to
associate with Industriai Light and
Magic - the special effects company
owned by George Lucas which is
responsible for the stunning effects
in many sci-fi films like Total Recall.

...AND THE BAD NEWS

Well it's more of an excuse, realty:
VistaPro requires 3.5Mb of memory -
3Mb at a pinch; preferably 4Mb if
you want to run a hard disk too.
(NTSC users can get away with 512K
less because their screens take up
less RAM.) If you're still deciding
whether to buy that extra couple of
megs, beware: this review might turn
out to be expensive.

VistaPro is not a 3D drawing or
modeling package - it's a viewer.
Now that may not sound particularly
awe inspiring, but consider that the
program uses real cartographical
(map) data from real places and you
might get some impression of what
this package is all about. The best
way to imagine what the package
does is to get hold of a large-scale
OS map - not a simple route
planner, but a good quality map that
shows land relief. Now imagine all
the hills and valleys extruded to full
size, add a btt of shading and mist
haze for good measure and you see
the idea. And VistaPro can show you
places that you will probably never
visit - Mars, for example...

Getting started with VistaPro is a
cinch. Simply load in one of the pre-

defined landscapes, click the
'render' button and wait. If you're
lucky the resultant image will be
interesting, but more often than not
some work will be needed to get a
decent picture. VistaPro is based on
a camera-target system which allows
you to set the angle of view precisely
across any area of the landscape.

Landscapes themselves are
displayed in simple 2D view, allowing
you to set the camera and target
(x,y) positions easily. The z
parameter (the height above the
landscape) is taken from the ground
level of the nearest point to the
camera or target object. Once set.

BLIT5

VistaPro b theoretically capable
of producing an animated flight
down the entire 4, 000km long
Martian grand canyon. Moving at
a leisurely 1 metre per frame and
5 frames per second it would take
9 days to play and need a 200
gigabyte hard disk!

A BOBS

fine adjustments can be made
simply by entering a new value for
any of the three coordinates.

VistaPro calculates the relative
distance between camera and target
(x.y.z) although these can be set if
required. A very useful feature here
is the independent coordinate lock -
that is, you can lock just the z and y
coordinates and move the camera or
target in the x plane without affecting
the other two. Unfortunately, the
(x.y.z) lock is the same for both
camera and target, and this can
sometimes make editing difficult. For
the adventurous animator, VistaPro

JARGO

BUSTING

Blend - A technique for merging the sharp band where two different

colours meet. Blending is fast but less accurate, and therefore
less attractive, than Gouraud shading (qv).

Dither - The use of pixels of different colours positioned closely
together to give the illusion of extra colours.

Gouraud shading - A form of blending colour bars to give the appearance
of a smooth transition as would be found in nature.

Render - In 3D drawing packages this is the act of transforming a
mathematical model into a real picture on the screen.

*A AMIOA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

S O FT WA R E

provides facilities to edit the
camera's banking angle as well as
the automatic (editable) settings for
pitch and heading. This facility
makes possible the sort of
animations popularised by the Star
Wars 'Death Star' scene and the
Star Trek II 'Genesis Probe fly-past';
sans firestorm, though.

On a more down-to-earth level.
VistaPro comes supplied with
landscaping tools to add natural

night sky. This will allow them to set
the sun rising behind the viewer
looking over the crater lake and the
cauldera area of Olympus Mons on
Mars. Also included are Half Dome
and El Capitan in Yosemite.

The ability to perform renderings
on a variety of screen formats is a
new feature of VistaPro. It supports
low and high resolution, HAM, and
overscan mode in any of these - so
even video animators will be able to

long period. You start the recorder
and record the various points along
the route. Once done, VistaPro
performs the rendering and saves
each frame without further user
intervention. Hard disk users can
make use of VistaPro's VANIM
format since this gives the best
effect. The problem is that once a
point has been fixed, it stays fixed.
There is no way to edit the final
result. I would have preferred even a
simple command line editor so that
each step could be edited.

CONCLUSION

Is VistaPro worth the best part of a
hundred quid? In my opinion, given
its unique appeal, ease of use and
the ability to produce pictures of

Mount St. Helens before and after, as It were, faithfully rendered by the rather super VistaPro.

features where they may not already
exist. The facility to build rivers is a
typical example, demonstrating that
some thought has been put behind
this package. Select 'river', click
where you want the river to start and
VistaPro follows the natural
landscape contours - even forming
small lakes and waterfalls where
nocossory! Although some of these
features are difficult to imagine on
the plan view they come into their
own when rendered on a 16 million-
colour, high-resolution interlaced
screen with Gouraud shading.
Interestingly enough too, the
annoying flicker usually associated
with interlaced screens is almost
imperceptible on the high-quality
renderings.

Artists will find the ability to set
light and shade - and the direction of
ambient light - of real benefit. Visual
futurists will be enchanted by the
option to set (random) stars in a

make the best use of the package.
VistaPro saves its renderings in
standard or 24-bit IFF, 24-RGB and
Turbo Silver format. This makes it
possible to display the pictures on
frame buffers or use them as stills in
presentations. For instance, the
Mount St Helens disaster in the early
1980s is captured in all its glory
both before and after the volcano
blew thousands of tons of rock miles
into the air. The completed stills
could be used in vulcanology lectures
as they stand or edited in an art
package like DPaint.

So much for raving over the
package. It does, however, still have
a few faults. The worst of these
concern the animation side of things,
so if animation is not your scene
these will be of no concern
whatsoever. My biggest bugbear with
the animation control is that it is very
basic. A form of macro language is
used to create the animations over a

photo-realistic quality - yes. t find it
amazing that Virtual Reality Labs can
afford to do it so cheaply, given the
vast amount of topographical data
contained in every map. VistaPro is
anything but fast, but the end results
more than justify the means
employed to get there.

Although aimed at artists and
designers, VistaPro could be put to
work in a classroom where teachers
can make use of its geographical
accuracy to demonstrate rock
formations and so on. Power uses
will delight at playing with theof
fractal landscapes; the rest of us will
gaze in awe at the beauty of places
we can barely imagine, let alone ever
visit. I can do nothing but praise
VistaPro; it's an innovative product
that deserves a place in Amiga
history. Those who find the system
requirements a little awe inspiring
can buy the original 1Mb Vista from
the same suppliers. O

ooooooooo

SHOPPING LIST

VistaPro £99.95

Requires 3.5Mb RAM; hord disk and fost

processor recommended.

M 1 1 U me LJ 7.7 J

Requires 1Mb RAM; fast processor
recommended

from HB Marketing Ltd

Unit3,Poylel4,
Newlonds Drive, (olnbrook.
Slough SL3 ODX
* 0753 686000

Created by Virtual Reality
Laboratories, Inc.

2341 Gonador Court, Son Luis Obispo,
California 93401 USA
«01l 18055458515

Expansion disks (only available from
VRL in the US at present):

Extended landscapes
(V002): S20 (12 landscapes)

Mt. Adams, Washington
(V003): S20 (12 landscapes)

Mt. Boldy, Calif ornio

(V004): S30 (two disk set; 1 7 landscapes)

Lake Arrowhead, California
(V005):S30 (two disk set; 17 landscapes)

Mt. San Georgio, California

(V006):S30 (two disk set; 17 landscapes)

Big Sur, California

(V007):S30 (two disk set; 17 landscapes)

California Set #1

(V0O4/5/6 ond 7): S80 (six disk set;

68 landscapes)

Voiles Marineris, Mars

(V009):S80 (six disk set;
88 landscapes)

CHECKOUT

VistaPro

Speed •

If patience is truly a virtue, then this
program is for the truly virtuous.

Interface • • • • •

The 3D bas-relief buttons add a
Workbench 2 look and feel.

Output • • • • •

Beauty encompassed in the mind's eye.

Documentation • • •

Nothing special - this program speaks for
itself.

Price • • • •

£99.95 is excellent value for what is
essentially a specialist product.

Overall rating

A real excuse to buy that 8Mb of RAM.
GVP hard drive. 25MHz 68020/68881
and 24-bit frame buffer you've being
promising yourself!

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

A meagre price to pay for

Amiga Quality

AMIGA 500 Standalone

Mouse • Modulator ■ Power Supply

Workbench and ^^^^^
Extras • Manuals
and cables

1Mb

AMIGA 500

Cartoon Classics

As A500 Standalone and 1/2 Mb
Upgrade takes 500 to 1 Meg •
Lemmings ■ The Simpsons •
Captain Planet ■
Deluxe Paint III

AMIGA 500 Screen Gems

As A500 Standalone and 1/2 Mb
Upgrade takes 500 to 1 Meg • Back
to the future II ■ Days of thunder ■
Shadow of the beast II •
The Nightbreed • [~~
Deluxe Paint II

AMIGA 500 Class of the
90's - First Steps

As A500 Standalone and 1/2 Mb
Upgrade takes 500 to 1 Meg -
Software: Prowrite 2.5 « Deluxe
Paint II • Deluxe Print II ■ Info file •
Music Mouse - Logo and Talking
turtle • Lets spell at home • BBC
Emulator. Accessories: Box of 10
Disks -
Mouse mat •
Resource File ■
Introductory video

AMIGA 1500

1 MB RAM • 2 Disk drives • Mouse -
Workbench and Extras ■ Manuals
and cables • Software: Battlechess
Populous + Promised Lands • Sim
City + Terrain Editor • The works
platinum Edition ■ Their finest hour
Deluxe Paint III.
Get the most out
of your Amiga
Book

AMIGA 1500 M

As Amiga 1500 but with

1084S monitor

0787 8802 27

MAI

AMIGA 10845 Monitor

Colour monitor for A500/
1000/ r-
1500/ '
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VIDEO

ne EMR Videopilot V320 is a

video editing controller for
your Amiga. While the idea of
an Amiga-controlled video
editing system is not new (there was
the Edit Line a few years ago), it has
taken some time to produce a
system which is flexible enough for
most domestic and semi-pro video
editors to incorporate into their

current hardware setup without
drastic changes.

The EMR Videopilot designer, V3i
(from Strasbourg, France), has come
up with a novel solution to support
the use of a wide range of video
dccha. By producing a unit capable
of controlling different VCRs, the
company has provided a mix 'n'
match solution for those of us who
would like to use as much of our
current video equipment as possible
while still having the flexibility to
upgrade as and when we choose.

V3i has achieved this flexibility
by incorporating four methods of VCR
control into the V320 Videopilot.
Thus, up to three VCRs
controlled by infra red
devices, the Sony L
socket (5-pin mini-DIN
or 2.5mm stereo mini-
jack) or the JVC 3.5mm
remote socket can all
be connected to the
V320 as source
machines, so
encompassing most of
the current VHS. S-VHS

and Vidoo 8 VCRs (and

in some cases
camcorders). In
addition, a more
sophisticated BVU or
U-Matic machine may
be used as the
recording deck, so long
as it has a 33-pin
parallel connector.

The Videopilot is a
stand-alone control unit
which connects to the
VCRs and the Amiga serial port, and
operates under software control. By
searching out time code or tape code
intervals specified via the ton TaDie
program, the source machine(s) can
be told which shots to edit on to the
recording VCR with an accuracy of up
to ±1 frame (depending on the VCRs
being used).

By having more than one source
machine, it is possible to use a
vision mixer in the system to perform
effects as the edits happen. While
Videopilot does not actually control
the mixer, it can be set to provide
audible cue beeps to inform you

This month Gary Whiteley takes a
look at the EMR Videopilot, a
broadcast-quality genlock and

some sharev/are video utilities

KrJ

"The world of video on the
Amiga just doesn't stand still -
keeping up with all the new
developments is a major task,
which is why I'm here to help."

Gary Whiteley

when to start the transition manually.
Likewise, an audio mixer can be
used to provide crossfades or other
special effects.

Because of the flexibility of the
Videopilot it would be foolish of me
to talk about specific VCRs in my
description of its functions and
actions. Further information about
VCR suitability can be had from EMR

the real connections already made
between the various video devices
and the Videopilot. If you don't quite
get it right. Videopilot will inform you
with a warning.

If, for any reason, you don't find
your model of VCR in the preset lists.
you can teach it how your infra-red
controller works and then add it to
the list - thus allowing other, as yet

TJIDCQPOT

your VCRs to verify that Videopilot is
working as it should and controlling
everything from the Amiga keyboard.
In practice, setting up is actually
quite straightforward and should
present no major problems.

TIME CODE

In order to get the best out of
Videopilot it helps to 'stripe' an

Zuwmmm

The EMR Videopilot V320. The unit
Itself is housed in an attractive matt
black casing; configuration Is simple
via the software provided.

if you are unsure whether your VCRs
will work with the machine.

SETTING UP

When starting up Videopilot for the
first time, you must configure the
system - that is. inform the software
what kind of VCRs you are using and
how they are connected. This is done
in the Configuration screen. By
selecting each input device in turn,
you can run through a list of options
for tape format. VCR model and time
code format. You then 'connect' the
VCRs to the Videopilot on-screen by
clicking on the screen equivalents of

unsupported devices to be used.
Doing this can be a process of trial
and error, but once done the files
can be saved and forgotten about.

The recorder setup also has an
additional control for setting up
inertia' - a way of fine-tuning the
pre-roll of the record VCR to obtain
optimum accuracy when editing.
Again, setting inertia up involves
some trial and error, though pre-
programmed models already have
their inertia set.

Once you are happy with the
configuration, you have the
opportunity to test the functions of

audio track on each source tape with
a time code. This is easily achieved,
since Videopilot puts out a time code
signal (in a proprietary V3TC format,
which is incompatible with other time
code formats). Under software
control a tape can be striped while
you wait, with its own identifying
number. Striping can be on either
channel of a stereo audio VCR or,
with special modification to certain
machines (including the Sony EV-
1000. Panasonic FS-100 and JVC
HR-D5000). as a separate track
whilst retaining the original stereo
sound. A PCM decoder is also

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

VIDEO

JARGO

BUSTING

ASCII -

American Standard Code for Information Interchange, the data
storage method often used to exchange text between computers

BNC - British Naval Connector; a type of connector commonly used for
video which has a secure, bayonet lightbulb-type fitting.

CCIR - The international standards committee of the ITU (International
Telecommunications Union) for radio and television broadcasting.

Component video - This is where various component parts of the video
signal, such as chrominance and luminance, are kept separate
from each other. This can give a better quality picture than
composite video, as the components can be processed separately.
An example of a component video signal is the Y/C format used
in S-VHS and Hi-8.

Composite video - A video signal including chrominance (colour hue and

saturation) and luminance (brightness) information in one combined
signal.

EBU - European Broadcasting Union; the European equivalent of SMPTE
(see below).

Genlock - A way of connecting one video source (the Amiga, for example) to
another (like video tape) in order to synchronise their signals
together to allow stable effects including overlay (key) between the
two sources.

Luminance - The monochrome part of a video signal which carries the
brightness' information.

Mix (also referred to as Dissolve) - A technique where one image is

gradually faded up across another which is fading down at the
same time, thus effecting a transition between the two.

Offline - In video terms, this can be used to refer to preparatory or rough

editing using lower cost equipment than would be used in the final
edit (online). Often no effects are added at this stage. Offlining is
done to get the programme into shape without wasting money
experimenting during the online edit.

SMPTE - Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers; a professional
organisation in the USA which sets technical standards for
American broadcasting.

Time base corrector - An electronic device for correcting any timing errors in
the video signal produced by a VTR so that it can be used by a
video switcher.

Time code - A numerical coding system recorded on to audio or video tape to
uniquely identify hours, minutes, seconds and frames to allow
accurate location of the tape at any point.

VTR/VCR - Video Tape Recorder/Video Cassette Recorder.

CMtiwted from pop 79

available for 8mm VCRs to enable
PCM tracks to be used. For mono
audio users, adding a control track
will destroy all original sound, so you
may be wise to make a dub copy to a
stereo VCR for editing.

As the first minute of code will
not be used, nor the last five
minutes (that's just how it goes), it's
recommended that you have at least
two minutes of code before your
required shots. In practice, this
would mean shooting two minutes of
tape before you start the serious
work - no real loss when you

consider the low price of tape and
the advantages gained later.

It is possible to edit without
using tapes striped with time code,
but accuracy is sacrificed to ±6 to 10
frames if you do so.

EDITING

Once you've got everything ready you
can go to the Editing Table screen -
where the real fun begins!

The function of the Editing Table
is to allow you to set up an edit list
by entering in and out points from a
source video tape. You do this quite
simply by playing the video tape

(using the Amiga function keys) until
you get to where you want a shot to
start from (with fine tuning being
performed using pause, step forward
and reverse if they are available on
the VCR you are using) and then
hitting [Return]. A numerical code
(HRS:MINS:SECS:FRAMES) will be
displayed showing the start of the
edit point. Similarly, play the tape on
until you reach the end of the shot,
hit [Return] again and the cut-out
point is entered. A duration will be
calculated for the shot and you can
enter a brief description of it if you
wish (up to 35 characters). Keep

repeating the process to build up a
complete edit list for your project.

When you've finished you'll have
a list of shots with shot number. VCR
and tape number (if you've numbered
them individually during time code
striping), in point, out point, shot
duration and a comment for each.
The total number of shots is also
displayed and the total length of all
the shots listed. An additional
column allows you to set up 'special
effects' - but more on this later.

Armed with the edit list, you can
now assemble the complete
sequence. This is very easily done by

COR BABY, THAT'S NEARLY FREE!

Now here's something that's almost free - and
that really does make a refreshing change in the
world of video and Amigas!

Electriclown 14 is a disk full of shareware
video tools and utilities, all of which could be
useful under the right circumstances.

There's TitleGen, which is a simple scrolling
titler; WOr (Video Tools On Tap), which has a set
of test patterns and other tools; Sportstext, a
simple caption program; VPG (Video Pattern
Generator), another set of test and alignment
patterns; sMOVIE, which is another scrolling video
titler; and finally LogTape - a utility for making logs
of the contents of video tapes. Quite a few
goodies to check out, in fact.

The disk contains documentation and demo
files for each of the programs, and comes as a
bootable, menu-operated package. There are no
icons for starting any of the programs up on their
own, but with a bit of application you can add
icons from elsewhere (just make sure that they are

TOOL icons), rename them and then you can run
the programs from anywhere, including a hard
disk. The only program I couldn't get to work like
this was VTOT.

So. let's ha^e a gander at what's on offer.

The two title programs, TitleGen and sMOVIE,
are both really ASCII script readers - which means
that you have to write your titles as a script with a
text editor such as TxEd, Ed. memacs or whatever.
By placing certain commands into the script you
are able to control items such as colour, font style
and size, scrolling speed and whether the text is
centred or not. Although you may think that
actually having to do the typing and setup yourself
in a text editor is a bit of a chore, just think of it as
part of the Amiga learning curve. It's actually very
easy and you'll soon get the hang of it, even if you
can't program your way out of a paper bag. You'll
also have to learn to find your way around the
machine a bit more if you wish to use other fonts
with these programs. In fact you can use just

about any font you like, and in any size that you
can find, with both TitleGen and sMOVIE.

Of the two programs. TitleGen is the simplest
to use. mainly because it has fewer frills. But I
thought that its output was more jerky than
sMOVIE s, especially at higher scrolling speeds. I
prefer sMOVIE, even though it means doing more
work initially In the 'programming' of the text file
and a little more thought. Its results bear the fruit
of your labours, and if you want a reasonably
featured scrolling titler for very little outlay then
have a look at this program. It also allows you to
do very simple line graphics (horizontal lines, in
fact) and also manipulate the display window size
to allow for effects such as shrinking or moving
text boxes. Not particularly spectacular - but it
may be just what you've been looking for to
complete the title sequence of your latest eptc
production. With a little care and planning. sMOWE
and TitleGen could become treasured parts of a
very low-budget video armoury.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1091

VIDEO

selecting 'Assemble' from a pull-
down menu, hitting the function key
for Record VCR, another F-hey for
Pause and then [Return]. Assuming

that you have enough source

machines connected, the entire
sequence win then ue put together

while you walk the dog, sleep, go to
the pub or whatever else you choose
to do now that you're no longer tied
to the edit suite. If Videopilot
requires a change of source tape it
will let you know.

If you have a Sony V800 (Video 8

machine) it is possible to have the
Videopilot do a sort of 'preview',
where the listed cuts will be
shown on a video monitor without

being edited to tape. But this

feature is actually of little use to
most people and may be removed
for future versions.

CHOP AND CHANGE

Now. here's where the (minor)
drawbacks start. You've done
your assembly and something
isn't quite right. So, what to do?
On a professional edit system it
is often possible to correct a
minor problem by 'insert editing'
a new shot in the place of the
existing, incorrect edit. But this just
isn't possible with Videopilot. You
simply have to go back and make
adjustments to the edit list and
assemble the whole thing again
(more time to walk the dog, though!).

Making the adjustments is
simple enough -just locate the
problem and adjust the edit points to
fit by using the mouse. Alternatively,
if you want to change the shot order
around, or cut one scene and insert
another in its place - no problem!
There are editing facilities for cut.
paste, insert and delete. Blocks of

shots can also be moved around,
which is great if you need repetitive,
'video scratch'-type edits. But
unfortunately time code numbers
cannot be typed directly into the list.
which is an omission since numeric
entry can be quicker than running
through tapes when you already have
a list of shots you wish to edit.

The edit list is automatically
saved to disk (by default) and can be
recalled or replaced by another,
previously saved list. Lists can be
printed and could probably even be
used to run a full, professional,

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The Editing Table is where you put
your masterpiece together.

editor (under the right
circumstances) so that you could use
Videopilot to make the 'rough cut' of
a commercial, for instance, and then
use the list information to help edit
your original master tapes together.

CUE MIXER!

Now. what about the 'special effects'
mentioned above? Well actually,
most of them aren't really special
effects at all. but are flags which can
be set to prompt you that there is a

sequence of shots coming up which
may require that you operate a vision
mixer, caption camera or genlock to
produce a desired special effect. By
putting a marker in the 'Effects'
column, the Amiga will give you an
audio cue (a buzzer sound) to remind
you to do the business. Videopilot
will then wait for you to confirm that
you are ready to make the effect
before continuing. Other effects'
include the ability to automatically
pause a source machine to provide a
still (frame, that is) of specifiable
length - although of course the
quality of still you get depends
on the quality of the pause of
your VCR.

So. what do I think? I think
that the Videopilot is a jolly good
idea and I wish they'd been
around a long time ago. EMR
makes no claims that it is for
professional applications
(though a professional version is
in the pipeline), but for those
people who have struggled with
stopwatches and tape counters
over the years this is certainly an
editor to consider. And as it
—J seems that many videographers
already have Amigas anyway, the
additional cost shouldn't be too bad.
After all. good video equipment isn't
cheap - so why should a good editor
be? Actually. I wish everything was
good and cheap... but there we are.

However, be warned that the
software is not multitasking, so you'll
have to lose a generation on your
graphics (by laying them off to tape
before editing) or get hold of another
Amiga to either run the Videopilot or
do your graphics on. By the way.
Videopilot will run on any Amiga
500/1500/2000/3000 with DOS
1.3 or above and will probably work

on an A1000 if the serial cable is
altered (check with EMR first,
though!). The software can be
installed on a hard disk.

Lastly. EMR has an animation
package due out soon which will
control a video deck to allow two-
frame edits to be made while using a
video camera. A professional version
of Videopilot is also on the way.

Videopilot comes supplied with
cables, software and one infra-red
unit. Further infra-red units are
available, but you'll also need a
multiplexer if you intend to control
more than two infra-red sources.
You'll also need a special cable if
you intend using a BVU or U-Matic
machine as a recorder.

continued on poge 32

ECKOUT

VIDEOPILOT V320

Documentation • • •

AH the information you need, but makes
assumptions about the user's existing
computer and hardware literacy. New
version due soon.

Ease Of Use ••••

Easier than using a telephone (well.
almost).

Hardware • • • •

Well built and sturdy.

Software • • • •

Easy to use. lots of features.

Price • • •

At £850. it's like most video equipment -
a little on the expensive side.

Overall rating

If you want a computer-controlled video
editor then Id recommend that you take a
look at Videopilot.

What else is in this collection? Well, the two
pattern generators- WOT and VPG. Unfortunately
both are in NTSC format, meaning that they are
only of passing interest to the serious video users
amongst us. My favourite of the two was VTOT,
even though I had to boot with the Eiectriclown
disk to get it to work.

WOT provides various test patterns, including
colour bars, grey scales and line patterns, which
can be used to set up things like the colour,
brightness and alignment of monitors. It also has
a facility for flipping the whole screen display
either horizontally or vertically and can be made to
fade the current screen to or from black (at any of
a range of preset speeds). All commands are via
the Amiga keyboard and are simple to operate.

For the video buffs amongst you. you may like
to know that the colour bars are SMPTE-style,
rather than the EBU versions used in the UK. But
what the heck - you probably have all the test
pattern gear you'll ever need anyway.

Over to VPG for the rest of the test pattern
news... OK, it's not as flashy or fully-featured as

vTOTand the displays are much simpler. In fact,
all you really get are dots, lines, rectangles and
centre crosshairs. But again, someone somewhere
will find it useful. It could be you.

Penultimately we come to SportsText. As with
TitleGen and sMOVIE this requires the use of a
text editor. What it does is allow you to put a
caption on the screen by pressing a two letter
code from the keyboard. The documentation says
it was written, as the name suggests, for
identifying sports players - and indeed the demo
supplied is for an old Chicago Bears line-up. So
you just put your script together, in a format such
as this:

22 22: Player Name
35 35: Player Name

Then all you need do when running the program is
to load the script, key in your required number. 22
for instance, press [Return] when you want the
caption to appear and you're in business. No
scrolling or anything flash, but you can set the

vertical position for the text, a degree of drop
shadowing and font style and colour.

And finally, the LogTape program. This is a
simple program which allows you to log and
comment your video tapes so that you can print
out details for your archives or editing purposes.
I'm not sure of its value as a production tool, as I
generally log by hand directly on to logging sheets:
and as it doesn't read any kind of time code from
the tape. I would suspect that it may be more of a
hindrance than a benefit, as you would have
another set of buttons to stop and start while you
were logging. But who am I to comment. Someone
obviously had a need to write this one. so it must
be of some use.

Well, there you are. If you're strapped for cash
or need a few more tools to help your video
production, check this disk out. You'll need to do a
bit of work if you want to use the programs from
hard disk or from your own custom disks, and ft
would be nice if Eiectriclown had made them icon
driven as well as overall menu driven. But there
you go. At the price (£2) you can hardly complain.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

VIDEO

(onlinued from poge 31

he Amiga is continually
gaining ground in the
broadcast video market,
mainly through third-party
manufacturers developing products
which demonstrate just how good the
machine can be. The G2 VideoCenter
VC3 is one such product.

(CCIR/PAL. meeting the IBA code of
practice standard), genlockable
coder which comes in a dark grey,
professional-style, rack mounting box
which is 1U high (around 4.5cm).
30cm deep and 49cm wide. It has all
its control switches and adjustments
easily accessible on the front panel.

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The VideoCenter VC3 Is a broadcast-quality genlockable video coder. No frills
here - Just good, solid quality.

G2 Systems is arc a British
company with a long track record in
designing equipment for broadcast
graphics and video production. The
company has been building
equipment for the Amiga for some
time and its range currently includes
domestic, industrial and broadcast-
quality genlocks and the VD2001
24-bit graphics card.

The VideoCenter VC3 is a mains-
powered, broadcast-quality

The VC3 unit itself has no
controls for mixing and fading the
Amiga and video signals, but an
external controller (the RMC1) can be
added at extra cost. Alternatively, the
VC3 can be controlled via the
Amiga's parallel port and software
commands - though the remote
control still needs to be connected.

It is necessary to connect the
VC3 to a reference video signal (such
as that from an SPG I so that it can

Switch

■
■

TABLE 1

Fader
Fade

Black

Fades screen
to black

Fades background
to black

Key

Fades keyed Image
to background

Background

No effect

Amiga

Crossfades between
Amiga and background

Fades screen

to black 1

be correctly timed to the rest of the
system. The VC3 can provide a
variety of output formats - RGB. Y/C.
Y/CrCb and composite video. It is
able to do this by switching the
signals to multi-purpose
BNC/miniDIN outputs on the rear of
the unit.

In addition to these selectable
outputs there are RGB, sync. PAL
and Y/C outputs available at all
times - so that a monitor can be
connected or the signal output to
test equipment. There are no direct
connections out to Amiga monitors,
but G2 can supply cabling solutions

to most monitor problems.

■

REMOTE CONTROL

The RMC1 is a smallish, wedge-
shaped unit with two faders
(Crossfade and Fade to black) and
three switches (Key. Background and
Amiga). It connects to the VC3 via 9-
pin D connectors. It is used to
control the keyer output - with
effects as in table 1.

In operation, the RMC1 works
smoothly and easily - although there
is a tendency for keyed images to
become black before the background
with screen fades to black.

A switch on the VC3's front panel
controls the key type - where
B/Ground simply takes Amiga colour

as the key colour and F/Ground
allows selection from 16 colours by
use of the nearby rotary control.

CRISP AND EVEN

The output quality from the VC3 is
excellent - sharp and well-coloured.
A colour bar generated on the Amiga
gave perfectly acceptable results on
vectorscope and waveform monitors.

1 had to make some small
adjustments to the VC3 phase
controls (horizontal phase and
subcarrier) to align it with the system
we were using, but otherwise there
was no need to make other, internal
adjustments.

Remember that we are dealing
here with a piece of broadcast
equipment. It is generally accepted
that quality costs money, and that
the buyer will also have other
equipment in their system to connect
to. such as a vision mixer - hence no
wipes or other tricks are included on
the VC3. Just good, solid quality. #"^

CHECKOUT
VideoCenter VC3

Documentation • • •

Flimsy and poorly presented - but it
contains all you need to know.

Ease Of Use • • •

Very simple to set up and use.

Features • • • • •

Most current video formats are catered
for, and the remote controller adds control
over keys and fades.

Hardware • • • i

In general the unit is very well built.
although the top could be more
substantially attached to the front panel

Quality • <

Very good - crisp and stable.

Price • • • • O

£1.695: broadcast quality = broadcast
price.

Overall rating

ooooooooo

SHOPPING LIST

EMR Videopilot

V320 main unit £850

Multiplexer £75

PCM Decoder £85

Time Code modifications £100

Extra infra red units £50 each

33 pin parallel cable £30

Available from:

EMR Video

The Born Business Centre

Great Rissington

Cheltenham

Gloucestershire

GL54 2LH

tr 0451 110115

VideoCenter VC3

VC3 main unit „..£1,695

RMCI remote controller £300

The unit is also available in other versions
(VC3B and VC3C), which ore less versatile
thon the VC3. Contact G2 lor more details.

Available from:
G2 Systems
5 Mead lone
Farnham
Surrey, GU9 7DY
tr 0252 737151

(All the obove prices exclude VAT)

Electrklown disk 1 4 £2.00

(including P& Pond VAT)

Available from:
Electrklown
Fen House
90 Notley Rood
Lowestoft
Suffolk
NR330UG
* 0502 566752

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

10 MARKETPLACE
ST. ALBANS
HERTS AL1 3DG

.(0727)56005/41396

THE GALLERY

ARNDALE CENTRE

LUTON, BEDS LU1 2PG

TEL (0582) 457195/411281

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Full Amiga 500 pock. WITHOUT Corloon Clmgcs/ScrMn Gems
software: BUT WITH:

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PLUS: 1 Blank Discs, Drsc Bex. Mouse Mat, Dust Cover, Joystick
1 1 S disc Hobbyte PO Greats Pock (see The Lot')
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1MB Amiga Pack PLUS CBM Monitor £659

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ORDERING:

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Next day delivery lor credit card orders placed
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In odarnon we offer the fotowng express services
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hill Amiga $00 pock, PLUS: Lemmings, The Simpsons ■ Bart v The Spoce
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PHONE FOR DETAILS OF 1950 OFFER

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Credt terms at 34 8S APR i variable) con be wronged tor puchoses over 1 1 50.
subject lo status. CornpeiitM leasing schemes are oho avarlaams lor businesses
including sole trotters and partnerships. Just tel for written deto* and
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HARD WA R E

"Of all the computers I've
owned (or still own), my A500
has far and away the best
keyboard. So why should I
bother paying out almost 200
quid for another?"

Pat Wi n Stanley

Pat Winstanley takes a look at a
replacement Amiga keyboard
with a difference.,.

In an ideal world, everyone
would be able to use a
standard keyboard. However, a
large number of people are
either physically handicapped or are
simply too young to have yet
acquired the basic dexterity most
adults take for granted.

The Concept Keyboard is aimed
at anyone who finds standard
methods of interfacing with a
computer get in the way of
interacting with a program. Although
originally developed for special
needs', the keyboard has many other
applications and as such is well
worth a look.

WHAT'S DIFFERENT?

The Concept Keyboard is around the
same size as the Amiga keyboard,
but much flatter. Inset into the
surface is an A4 touch-sensitive pad

perhaps half a dozen or so, and
thus the qwerty keyboard is more or
less redundant. For youngsters
unfamiliar with the standard
keyboard, or adults or children with
mobility and/or learning difficulties,
the Concept Keyboard offers a
method of dispensing with all the
non-relevant keys, so making
physical or intellectual selection
much easier.

This is particularly useful for
physically handicapped people who
find it difficult to direct their hands to
a necessarily small area on a
standard keyboard. With Concept an
overlay can be prepared to match
any person's dexterity.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

For each program, an A4-stzed paper
overlay is prepared. This simply slots
over the keyboard and shows the
areas to be pressed for any
particular key or key-sequence to be
activated. So a program almost
totally under cursor control, with

The Concept Keyboard: great hardware, but the software lets It down a little.

divided into 256 cells. Each cell is
capable of emulating a keypress or
string of keypresses, and several
cells can be grouped together, all
giving the same result. In this way it
is possible to split the keyboard into
several large sections pertinent to
the controls needed for a specific
program.

For instance, most programs only
use a limited range of controls,

perhaps the [Esc] and [Return] keys
also needed occasionally, would
need an overlay of only six areas.
Obviously, many programs can
use the same basic overlay, but
others need their own custom-
designed sheet. The keyboard is
supplied with four ready-prepared
paper overlays covering word
processors (such as Notepad). Logo,
KindWords and a special sheet to

help you design your own overlays
using non-qwerty characters.

Also supplied is software which
contains the computer overlays for
those programs together with a
designer for making your own and a
manager for attaching the overtays to
other stand-alone programs.

DESIGNER PROBLEMS

In theory, designing your own
overlays should be simple. The
software presents a screen divided
into cells matching those on the
keyboard. Click on a cell or group of
cells with the mouse to highlight the
area and then type in the key or
series of key presses it is to
represent. In practise things aren't
quite so smooth, though. Entry
demands switching back and forth
between the Amiga keyboard and the
mouse and is downright awkward.
Although the job gets done in the
end, the interface is so clumsy it
gets in the way of logical thought.

Another difficulty is working out
the relationship between a cell on
the screen and one on the Concept
Keyboard. Each cell on the keyboard
is numbered, but no numbers are
shown on screen - either on the
cells or as a tell-tale elsewhere. This
can. and often does, lead to the
wrong set of cells being selected.

SOFTWARE SUPPORT

The overlay must be initialised before
running the main program to be
used, so the system cannot be used
with programs which only autoboot.
However, many programs can be run
from either Workbench or Shell and
of those I tested, all worked to a
greater or lesser degree. Programs
needing little more than a number
pad together with the (Return] key
worked fine, but those requiring
mouse control emulation proved far
more difficult.

A series of attempts (lasting a
whole day) to interface the Concept
Keyboard with Sim City proved rather
disappointing. Although I had been
assured of the possibility I found it
impossible to do any more than
scroll around the landscape. Mouse
button presses simply weren't
recognised. If, as an experienced
user with a fair understanding of the
Amiga I was unable to sort it out, I

shudder to think of the difficulties
faced by parents and teachers
unused to the machine.

OVERALL

The Concept Keyboard is a well
made, nicely designed product with
potential applications in a wide range
of situations, from the nursery
through to industry - in fact,
anywhere that the standard qwerty
keyboard is not needed in its
entirety. However, until the overlay
software (and its manual) is
improved, accessibility to overlays
other than those supplied will remain
a minefield for the inexperienced
Amiga user. QJ

ooooooooo

SHOPPING LIST

Concept Keyboard plus overlay

software £1 88

Available from HB Marketing
Unit 3, Poyle 14,
Newlands Drive, (olnbrook,
Slough S13 ODX
* 0753 686000

ECKOUT

CONCEPT KEYBOARP

Hardware • • • •

Solid construction but a little lightweight,
causing it to slide on flat surfaces.

Software •

The idea's there, but poor implementation
makes the simplest thing unnecessarily
hard work.

Ease of use • • •

Using the supplied overlays is a doddle,
but customising your own is a nightmare.

Speed ••••

Although not instantaneous, the keyboard
response is fast enough for most users
(who are likely to be physically slow
anyway).

Documentation • •
The keyboard manual is simple and clear,
giving all required details. The software
manual needs a full revamp to be half way
comprehensible to the average user.

Price • • • O

Although at £188 it's expensive for home
use. the Keyboard and software represent
reasonable value for educational
establishments - especially given the
potential application range.

Overall rating

Excellent, simple to operate hardware let
down badly by poor bundled software.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

You know what YOU

want from YOUR

computer, that 's why

you 're choosing AMIGA

..MOW YOU'VE CHOSEN THE RIGHT

court 1T.R. MAKE SI RE rot ■ CHOOSE

THE RIGHT DEALER.

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one "hu niv* ml) cnmpcUivc. Inn ihe >hk' who gives
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system

III! n\| mi HON h

Gordon Horwc
Computers

Pioneers "i rhe 'Complete Pack' flarwoods have
spn iabsed in < ' muiiodnr* pn h!u. is fh »m the earliest VH 2 i
right up 10 todays market leader, the AMIGA in Fact, we've
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chances are someol your friends will Ik- abk told you ol
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4096 Colours

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Amiga Mouse

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{Please see lull details in our
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"MKIP

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•

\ nidi ivnm an- tuutkilih "(W'/iif fOSUBWtfix KM /(/m/m/v VC "w unfertty /*'»<'/ •'' r/i rndvftbismkrftfn full ikltiils

Remember to ask for your FREE
Harwoods Amiga catalogue.

•

HARWOODS

BRILLIANT

AMIGA 1Mb

'MEGA 21'

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Thars right you get
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detailed in Harwoods

"Mega 21' Games

Pack 1 (left), plus
F19 Stealth Fighter
AND you also get...

THE SUPERB PHILIPS CM8833AI
STEREO COLOUR MONITOR

Twin Slereo Speakers,
Green Screen Switch,
Free Lead lo Amiga,
Tailored Dust Cover
12 Months on-site
maintenance warranty

(Set morttor pan* to tttafej

A SP€C1AL PACK FROM HARWOODS FOR
YOU SEE THOSE GAME S WITH SUPERB

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■ Mhg

HARWOOD'S BRILLIANT
AMIGA 1Mb 'MEGA 2V

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Thars nght you get the fantastic

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detailed in Harwoods 'Mega 21"

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F19 Stealth Fighter AND

then you also get..

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Twin Stereo Speakers. Green

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iSee twi*x panel for OetaJs i

MONK* AW
MNTVtMOC

"'13

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, . . THE BRILLIANT STAR LC 200 COLOUR PRINTER

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PACKAGE FROM HARWOODS TO SET

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A PRICE YOU'LL FIND HARO TO BEAT!

V*T

OR-

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£834

p tii

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BUSINESS"

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INCLUDES ALL THE

FOLLOWING...

AMIGA A500 WITH 1Mb..

MEMORY INC. CLOCK

(See Standard Features List)

SUPERB PHILIPS CM 8833/11
STEREO COLOUR MONITOR*

(See Monitor Panel)

STAR LC200 9 PIN NLQ
FULL COLOUR PRINTER

(See Primer Listing Panel)

c*4R«t*

aitm

A MOST Of 0U3WC33 50fTWARE ft ACCESSORIES

PEN PAL V1.3 (Word Processor)... 1Mb.

SUPERBASE II PERSONAL (Database)

SUPERPLAN (Spreadsheet)...! Mb.

f ($£.>■

1 luTOfttAL DISK

the SIMPSONS

CAPTAIN PLANET

LEMMINGS

FlO STEALTH FIGHTER

DELUXE PAINT HI

NO* wttt ANIMATION

mcroswitched joystick

l0BLANK3S*DtSKS
DISK LIBRARY CASE
MOUSE MAT

3 TAJIQHED DUST COVFUS

."r

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*OR JUST CM TO MIL* RUN THOSE

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PACKAGE PRICE OF JUST...

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hdutog

VAT

HARWOOOS LEARN & PLAY

PRIMARY 6 JUNIOR PACK A
Gel your children off lo the nght

computing start with this software

learn and piay pack..

nw PLATIA«W&AM

WW LOMSftTMIWS

MOf HUH StViWCR

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feint mivfflg yMg mm Int mb* N
unoc* crindv ottC Pnjf inferar r* te*r.

OUintMtfvgttfPnH vPt conn*.
tommy**? FAmMottJlCjmculumHC i

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24 mm com TwnngkanBri
«« toott K* m% am i m i

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GCS£-0 Um MC

GCSE eummaoon lev* studies on your
Amiga computer that stun'

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» ifltt} 1» fWSW *ptU[

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aucny, utft and ma Mi * fcnV Joytat* A Mow

hnorW ■W "Gui* WOY on wwi lo r*p

QUCATtON
PACK A

inm
am

t.iiCi

titiiid

iiimi

BCH PACK A A S RfTAA.
ATOVBtOOBiaiAlO

NCUJOdOGnEATOAIKS
TOCWT VOuONL»PA*

*TN*POWE*PU»Ofi
I fOUERMO ONL* FROM

GOROOH HARWOOOS

A«C» ~CM*«

EDUCATWN
PACKI

IMP*

iiilll

i i Vm i;#

The Closer you look,
The Better we look.

i nMtmsimmWIUlfolmllittluMuiilftirmitilMxIuciSiseeottrw^

SOUND AND VISION

IMAGINE. IF YOU CAN, A NEW, MORE POWERFUL AMIGA...

...AN AMIGA WITH 1 MEGABYTE OF MEMORY, AND A COMPACT DISK DRIVE OF ALMOST

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IMAGINE THIS, AND YOU CAN START TO GRASP THE CONCEPT OF CDTV.

THE INTEGRAL COMPACT DISK ORWE. IS THE KEY TO THE POWER OF CDTV ITS STORAGE CAPACITY IS EQUIVALENT

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EVERY CDTV, IS AN AMIGA, JUST WAITING TO BE USED. SO LATER ON. YOUU BE ABLE TO BUY THE OPTIONAL

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CALL IN AND SEE US FOR YOU PERSONAL DEMONSTRATION. OR PHONE US FOR YOUR

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COTV ACCESSORIES

DUE TO BE RELEASED SOON -Please cat us lot latest availaMy

CD 1220 KEYBOARD AN 89 KEY QWERTY KEYBOARD £49.95

CD 12S2 MOUSE TWO WAY INFRARED MOUSE AND BATTERY SAVER £49.95

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CO 1401 MEMORY CARD PERSONAL RAM CARD CONTAINING C79.95

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CO 1321 VIDEO CARD PAL BASED VIDEO INTERFACE CARD TO £TBC

ALLOW CONNECTION TO TVS OR VIDEOS REQUIRING
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OTHER ACCESSORIES DUE TO BE RELEASED SOON ■

HARWOODS AMIGA

I Pro-gen Amiga Genlock

The Prolan AMIGA Genlock stows you to ma you Amiga dsptay w*h any PAL video
asptay whether (i is from a VCR. Laserotefc ptayer or a Camcorder In fad any «em of
video equpmeot often outputs a PAL compo si te video signal Comfcned with the Amp
computer tji«Pn>GengrvesyCAJ me taato Take your

own turns & give mem a protessionaJ look by OVERLAYING TITLES or by SUPER
IMPOSING YOUR OWN GRAPHICS created * packages Ike SpeOrtcclof or Deluxe
Parni. Proven a suppbed with Oxtf s SpectRKotor pert & aneneton psckage (see below)

I FREE

In Spectracotor every drawing tool and animaton control is at your finger tips • over 50
toots in the last menu Toolkit, plus point and chek access to ail 4096 colours, with inde-
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easy mouse controls tor all functions, and the ability to paint with muRi-page animated
brushes, and you've got a powerful tool for artistic expression With animation controls
rt's simple to put yourideas into motion Forget co-ordinate systems and reference numbers

(ust move objects with the mouse in this intuitive and fnencty graphical environment.
Spectrscoky supports both ANIM & IFF file formats, and al the video modes of the Amiga
including HAM*

How it works:

*&&

STOP PRESS

noon NowftcuocAverr

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•DGecocx co»*ai«i c*eu AT

1HSAUOW5 PCOOEM TO BE USED
STkAOTTMU' HTTri V0ST rORjLW

votoea#*s*r «nwTT»c«D

TO >W KWH r* cc#«a CO*

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4tt*TOVC*<t

• AT TO 5T*«n TOU Off ajOMT ROM

n« uOMBfT rrju qw* t* box*

PRO-GEN &
Spectracolor

ONLY £129.95

Mode Switch-box for Genlocks

Features Include

•Compatible With The Pro-Gen And Rendale 8802
-Supplied With Genlock Extender Cable Worth £9 95
-Switch-box Switches Between Foreground. Back-
ground. Video And Computer Modes

£29.95

lithrnfrun tktnkihk 'subject to stotwifiir mm pnnttKt& w whIh //v >■>?>/,, 1 //•!■ ./,/■. i iBdcfatt-

AMIGA STORAGE DEVICES

Remember to ask for your FREE
Harm khIs Amiga catalogue.

Commodore ASM 20Uh HD

Features Include
I Cunnocto to wttoca i Duo on
left hand woe of Amna A500

1 Autohoote with Ktritttari 1 !i

.'r SOCKOR For Up 10 7 MO tf HAM

\DMAAoo«m

i External SCSI Port

I Complete With Power Supply

A590 Hud Oi* Inducing
512K RAM Onh/ £299 93

A590 Hard Disk Induing
1Mb. RAM Only C319 95

fl Hard On* mduttng

2 Mb. RAM Only WMI

SUPRA 500XP5M 05Mb HD

Features Include

U Capacities of 52/80Vi05Mb all available

ft Connects to sidecar bus on L/H side of Amiga A500

a Auioboots with KicKsiart i 3, boot cnatx&'disaMe switch

> Sockets tor up to 8 Mb of FASTRAM with enable/
disable switch

■ Auioboots With Kickstam. 3

SCSI Port & Amiga bus pass thru allows other devices
to be connected

> Includes Express Copy hard dnve Back-up Software
.V 52 Mb version powered by Amiga, High Current

Power Supply optional. High Current Power Supply
(recommended for 52Mb. version) required for 80Mb.
and 105 Mb versions

CumanaCAX354 3.5"
External 2nd Disk Drive.
-V Features Include
-V Long connecting cable
ft 1Mb. (880K Formatted)
Capacity

> Enable/Disable Switch,

> Throughport
ft Access Light

ft Compatible with Amiga
50ai(XXV150O200CV3000
andCDTV _^_^

£57.95

o SIZE

RAM I STORAGE CAPACITY
SIZE 1 52Mb. 80Mb. 105Mb.

51 2K, £499.95 '£549.95, '£659.95

2Mb. £549.95 "£599.95 1 '£709.95

4Mb. | £749.95; '£799.95 '£909.95
8Mb. ! £969.95 \ '1019.95 "1 129J95

**se aonJtorgei to add tfle costot Pow*

Sixty *r*ertaicuUiifg price $ & 1Q5M* Jmes

PERIPHERAL PACK 1

A TRULY SPECIAL PACK FROM HARWOODS

TO MAKE YOUR AMIGA DO MORE THAN EVER!

Harwoods have put this pack together for you to add to your

Amiga at an AMAZING SAVING over individually priced items.

You get extra power from our Pro-Ram memory upgrade

and EXTRA storage from the brilliant Cumana drive.

Harwoods Pro-Ram is our best selling Amiga upgrade with
16chip RAM, similar in design to CBM's A501 and works

exactly the same. The Cumana CAX 354 external drive is

a brand leader in the 3.5' market having received a great

deal of praise over the years. And... to round off we also

include a 3.5' Disk Head Cleaner toot!!

ALL THIS FOR THE
AMAZING PRICE OF OMLY.

£79.95

PERIPHERAL PACK 2

TWO MORE GREAT PACKAGES THAT

SAVE YOU MORE MONEY!

These two packs are aimed at the designer who needs

to get a great deal from his Amiga. A superb quality

monitor in the PHILIPS CM8833/M has been put

with a choice of either the CITIZEN SWIFT9 or the

CITIZEN SWIFT 24 printer. You choose, but whichever

combination you have the price has been designed to

SAVE YOU MONEY Buying together will save you £££'s!

PACK2wi-

MWh C

"■ Costs Jus-

ih ^■^■■^■J

£479.95

h ft Cituen Swift 24 Co

£569.95

Costs J

AMIGA SOFTWARE

>.' ' The utimaie so*!*afe io' p-oiessona. MIDI NejlMKlnfl, mMMmMUtoMCOEifr
urabto Kxanan and a synthesiser patch editor Ail the data you need to recreate a song can be
recalled from one performance Me ncludmg sequences. MIDI routing, sync setup, keyboard maps
and synthesiser or drum machine patch libraries.

A mo» AMOS allows you to access the power of the Amiga wto ease 500 different command
make AMOS a sophisticated development language The AMOS animation language allows you to
create complex animation sequences The package « supphed with a 300 page manual aithover
80 example programs on the program disc £49.95

SuptfSese 4: Most powerful database avertable tor the Amga.Combines the ease of use of Super
Bom ? wttfi a varum* programming language so that you can tailor your data to your own specific
needs tor Ouorous*wss1*rary records elc £229 95

Lattice C An Ideal tool for the C programmer whether experienced or a novice. The best way to
create applications lor the Amiga FuBy supports Motorola chipset Nearly 300 functions optimised
to help the user wnte the tightest possible code Includes screen editor. Most Amga C books are
baaed around lattice £1 99.95

Deluxe Paint IV, Latest version of the Amigas first, and still the best, paint and animation package,
now including HAM mode (t Mb more recommended) £79.95

Vidl. The Complete Colour Solution VTdl with RGB Sptoter. Frame Grabber & Digroser Grabs
moving colour video into 16 grey scale frames (up to 16 frames in 1Mb Amiga) and digitises from
all colour video source in up to 4096 colours in less than 1 second! Requires home VCR or video
camera tor grabbing Requires video camera or VCR with perfect pause for digrteing. Now comes
with Spactracolor FREEHI £179.95

MASTER5OUN0 High Quality 'mono' sampler (best lor sampling instruments etc.) Q|J|
MIDI INTERFACE (5 Port): In, Out, Through plus 2 switchabJe thru/out. Includes cable. £34.95

THE ABOVE IS JUST A SMALL SAMPLE FROM OUR EXTENSIVE RANGE OF TITLES FOR THE SERIOUS AMIGA USER. THIS WHEN

COMBINED WITH OUR MASSIVE RECREATIONAL STOCK, GIVES A VAST SOFTWARE SELECTION FOR EVEPVONS. IF YOU WOULD

LIKE TO KNOW MORE. JUST ASK US FOR YOUR FREE COPY OF OUR SOFTWARE CATALOGUE

Pen Pal

WORD PKOttNNOItDA I AliASK

With FVn Pal \i.*i cm\ mix text J* ' *
colour p-jphics & iliLi in *ay* no ■ tfscr
u^i can* Tft hafkOin^ ol £tj|4ul> ft
unsurpassed. FVn PaJ l\ the only uurd
fw\vcv*.T I tc-a**J (tul \**iU p
jUIiJiuhruIK ut?ep
tmnjund tzntfitucN

\m491 World.
Juh VO

Bkfi,

£79.95

PENPALVen I )

WITH 5I2K Amiga
RAM F-xpansion
,mh. ivvv.v

• :<•;•

The Closer you look,
The Better we look.

1 . . •. /..j ,-. -. ... .1 iiimlahk' (iiilycil Uiaaliinjurniiiflpniiliiclx: wimri>nkrtnnp<nwtaltlvenilt'flbL<(Ulivrtftii fttBttehtih

PRINTERS

All printers in our range include the following standard features...

A Standard Centronics parallel port unless olherwise slated for direct connection
to Amiga, PC's, ST etc. and come with a
FREE CONNECTOR LEAD & A FREE TAILORED DUST COVER!

*****

F ~ i

c c c

— o
* X — c w

CIT17FN 1200« . Up to 120/25 CfM

Vary ratable low eool pnntrtr (please specify IntuHncn on order )

-) imcrthengoabto interfaces tor Centronics -I Fut 2 Year manufacturer*
RS 232 or Sml typo for C6M 64 etc warranty

£149.95

NEW FASTER OTAAlCMtr^iiKwLClO).Upto15Q/3lcpi- | c - cooc
ReOtacameniW our moil popular Maw ft*Matnx rjnr*w art at a super |t 103.33
|ow ntroOuctory pnee
J KMiipte lorn options easty accesstte J Stmultarteous, corwwxft and snote

from trort panel Mat Monan

-J Excellent paper handling facilities J 240 * 240 dp Graphics

CITIZEN 124D MONO 24 WN PRINTER

-J 360 dpi -24 Pin MONO

J BK Bun* -Expendable

-J 3 Font*. Superb letter qualify
-1 Puati ft Put Tractor leads

STAR LC 24-10 -Up to 1

24 Pin version of Via Star LC Series with
_i Exceptional letter print quality
_) 360 x 360 dp- Graphics

-J 2yr Warranty

□ Food tar labels & murs-pari

stationery

-J Low runftng costs

£209.95

E214.95

-J Additional torn cartridges avertable
□ 6r«sttentfont$

STAR LC200 GREAT COLOUR PRINTER - 185/40 cpa

This Is the one m our packs'

£214.95

Micro paper lead, Max paper width 1 1 r
Suppled wit) colour & rnonorfjbons
Papw part **h auto wgte sheet toadtog

Prograrrvnebki trcm front panel,

m&Pswfches

12 month warranty

-J 80 Column Dot Matrix J

-J 240 dpi ■ 9 Pm COLOUR

-i tWButtw. 8 Resident Fonts

J Front PartfPachSelecaon _J

-i TWvpul trade* areartwaomtseds

_J Reverse paper leads J

CITIZEN SWIFT 9PIN COLOUR • Up to 160/40cps

New super r*gh spec 9Pin cotour primer
Q BKButfer 4Fonts i 240 x 240 dpi Colour Graphics

_i Push and pull tractor bufl-in Best text qualify m our BPln range

-J Feed lor labels'mufti pan stationeiy J 2 Vear Citizen warranty

STAfl LC24-200 24 WN MONO PRINTER - 220*5 cpa —

£229.95

New Star 24 pm that means business!

J a0Cc*jmnOo»MatB

-I M0 dpi -24 Pin MONO J

□ 7KBuftw expandable to 39K J
-J 10 Resident Fonts -J
J Front Panel Pit* Selection

□ PuahVpull tractor & reartottcm teeds -J
CJ Reverse paper feed -J

£259.95

Paper park wah auto swkjo sheet baring

Woo paper toed. Max paper width 1 1 T

Supplied with mono nbbon

Faster than the OWLC24-10

Extra font cartridges available

Program from front panel, No DIP switches

12 month warranty

STAR LC24-200 NEW COLOUR PRINTER - 220/55 cp« — £309.95

Ccta* version rjl the r«itt4-200 Mono l

_l 80 Column Dot Matrix

-J 360 dpi 24 Pin COLOUR

a 30K Butte- expendable to 62K

□ 10 Resident Fonts

_i Front Panel Pitch Selection

_J Push/pull tractor & rear/bottom feeds

U Reverse papw toed

Q 12 month warranty

-J
-J
J

Papw part #«h auto t*c*t sheet toecSng

Moo papw toed. Max. paper wtfth 1 1 T
Supplied with colour & mono ribbons
Bener quafcty rhan LC2O0 colour
Extra toot cartridges available
Programrnable from front panel,
No DIP switches

CITIZEN SWIFT 24 PIN COLOUR - Up

24Pi>CctoufPiwar

J Pu8nartfr^tramDu*Hnwajit»a©m _l 360 x 360 dpi Cctour Graphics
tosdtortobatoAmuK-partstaionery J 2 Year CiBzen warranty

NEW FASTER STAR XB PRINTER RANGE

Colour XB24-200 & XB24-250 • 27S/80 cpa

These NEW top of (ho range Stars replace the XB24/I0 a
XB24/15, & offer the best possible oualrty dot matrix printing

_i E.ceptlonal print oualrtv

J 4. idftn sups* letter quality fonts
_l u i 24PVi noar letter quality torts

£319.95

£399.95

24-200 Colour

wiotCcmw

£499.95

24-250 Colour

Buffer 29K(X824V200> & 76K (XB 24,?5m
t 360 1 360 dp fcjicxjr Graphics
J !2mt»s on-sae warranty (UK Mainland)

£899.95

HEWLETT PACKARD PAINTJET A4

Our best quality tun colour printer at a reaassc price "—

J Parallel'Cwrtronlcs or Serial RS232 l/F {apectty with order MAC option available)
J For presentation gtaphicsDTP. CAD and techrHcaLsoentllx; applications
-J A lull page of colour graphics In 4 minutes (typical)

J Non Impact printing, _J WW print transparencies

-J virtually leant, 43dbo J l2Mc*ithsr^sitewwrarify(UKMeJnlarid)

STARSCRIPT - 4ppm POSTSCRIPT COMPATIBLE USER ^ New!
Brand now M Laser Prirser. w* connect to PC. AmipA ST and Macrtosh | LI 174.95

-I300DPI 2Mb Utjoradabie to SMb SeriaVPafltfsVApcaBtt* ntortacea as standard

-i Ermiattons xx HP Senes II. Epson -J i2month on site warranty (UK Mainland)
EX800, IBM Propnnter A Diablo 630 -J Every deslclop publishers dream

SEE OUR LIST OF ACCESSORIES FOR BOTH STAR
AND CITIZEN PRINTERS. ALL AT COMPETITIVE PRICES!

All the characters Per Second speeds quoted below

are Draft/LQ at Wcpi

PRINTER ACCESSORIES

CITIZEN PRINTER ACCESSORIES:

STAR PRINTER ACCESSORIES:

Citizen 1200+ Sheet Feeder

ttt.K

Star LC-20 Mono Primer

Citizen 1200- Parallel Interface

C4t\«

Automatic SheetFeeder

H4.95

Citizen t20D» CBM C64 Serial Interface

t*M

StarLC24-iO Mono Printer

Owen 1240 32K Buffer

m»

32K Butler £67 96

W7JS

Citizen 1240 Semi- Auto SheetFeedef

Automatic SheetFeeder

C74JS

Citizen 124D Automatic Sheet Feeder

Citizen 1240 Primer Stand

out

Star LC-200 Colour Pnntor

Automatic SheetFeeder

V4.m

Citizen Swift 9 Semi -Auto SheetFeeder

O0.K

Citizen Swift 9 Automatic Sheet Feeder

Star LC 24-200 Mono Printer

Citizen Swift 9 Printer Stand

tHM

32K Pnnier Bolter

Autornatic SheetFeeder

174JK

Citizen Swift 9X Printer Stand

OkM

Citizen Swift 9X Autornatic Sheet Feeder

C13MS

Star LC 24-200 Cotour Printer

Citizen Swift 24 32K Printer Buffer

C13.M

32K Pnnier Buffer

m.«6

Cnizen Swift 24 Semi-Auto Sheet Feeder

Uttt

Automatic SheetFeeder

D4.K

Citizen Swift 24 Automatic Sheet Feeder

tn.M

Citizen Swift 24 Printer Stand

Star XB 24-200 Cotour Pnnter

PuJ Tractor

C34.»

Citizen Swift 24X Auto Sheet Feeder

tIMM

Font Cartridges -

Cftzen Swft 24X Pnnier Stand

Styles To Be Amounted

QUI

128K Centronics Printer Buffer

HEWLETT PACKARD PAINTJET

Automatic SheetFeeder

C114.96

PRINTER ACCESSORIES

Dual Bin SheetFeeder

£421 m

Hewlett Packard PaintJet

Star XB 24-250 0>tour Printer

Black Ink cartridge

atiK

PulTractor

tHM

Colour Ink tartndge

t3i m

FcrtCamidgta-
Stytos To Be Announced

Smgte Sheet Printer Paper

QUI

2-Fold Pnnter Paper

t1U6

1 28K Centrortcs Printer Buffer

tmm

Transparency Paper -

Automatic SheetFeeder

t174.»S

Pack of 50 Sheets

02.K

Dual Bin SheetFeeder

twm

CITIZEN 1 200* I BUCK ONLY

£4.95

£24.95

N/A

;CfTTZEN124

[BLACK ONLY

£4.95

£24.95

N/A

CfTXZEN SWIFT 9 BUCK/COLOUR 1

£4.95

£24.95

£16.95

£99.95

CfTTZEN SWtFT 24 BUCK/COLOUR

£4.95

£24.95

£16.95

£99.95

STAR LC1GV20

[buck only

£4.95

£24.95

N/A

N/A I

STAR LC200 C

STARLC24/200M

BUCK/COLOUR

BLACK ONLY

STAR LC24/200 C SLACK/COLOUR

STAR XB RANGE BLACK/COLOUR

£6.95 ZX9

E8.95 Z24

£8.95 Z24

£36.95 ZX9

£49.95 Z24

£12.95 zxscl

N/A

£14.95«*ct

£14.95x2*04.

£69.95 zxsol

£74.95 U4ci

£74.95 xmcl

BOOK SHOP

FOR BEGINNERS &
EXPERTS ALIKE

Wl ILWA r$ CARflV LAfKU $70C*S Of THE MU A4ACf Of
ABACUS 900KS Www j* tor xwiw

AMGA FOR BCONNetS - VOL 1 ABACUS BOOKS.

ivJLdes fcst Lit 4 Caoc and vim oak.
AMKU BASIC KS)0€ AND OUT VOL 2 ABACUS BOOKS.
DefraM stkp by Wp gudt to progranmng Amps s tt bit*.
Aia^lWCt««LA>*GUAG£-VOl 4 ABACUS BOOftS
Pnoot ajdt to «*-cg saoco mr ttm ancuay

U^OMMKtAMan-VtXtlMCUSWXS
GutttoAnoiXISiai NFWEdacTfcOOS.20
AMGA HARDWARE REFERENCE sUNUAL-AAIion Wotkry,
Wrean by istfneal K*ft» ■ &jrrpwdor«Amailnc USA.
Peoote oho dswgned your Arnoi. HardMrt level nam
ca» programrwig it sdvincod l*v«

AliGA, BEST Of TRICKS I TIPS Vol 17.
Acorrt^sotrtbwwspsMftnaUeyoutoiJoMOflE
off* fxi Amo> at) a woty « posatk

£12.95

£11.96
£14.«

£21.95
B2.95

i ieiff/'i nu\ iiir in nililhU' iKtilmt h> xuinm hr nurt fnulUih W'ift, milviuiti /mini unlH-i-ml "J this luhviljm- full ih-hiih

MONITORS & MONITOR TV's

Harwoods stock a complete range of both Monitors & Monitor TV's
to give you your perfect solution to the type of display to buy.

PHILIPS CM8833/II m tSSSSf m

NOW WITH FREE...F19 STEALTH FIGHTER!!!

The ever popular 14-incti Philips CM B833 Mkll, is the most versatile

multipurpose colour monitor available. Its versatility means you nol

only get excellent colour graphics & text performance with a wide

range of personal computers, but when connected to a VCR Of

optional tuner, you get an amazing 600 pixel TV picture It's this

6O0 pixel resolution, that makes the 8833 essential lor the senous

user who wants to use his computer tor a text based application. With

the 8833 Mkll, Harwoods give you the complete set up. lo get you

gomg straight away Monitor, RGB picture and Stereo Audio Cables

Tailored dust cover, a full 12 Months on site service warranty, and

inclusive of a FREE Superb F19 Stealth Fighter Game!"

■RGBMD. TTl. Composite Video & stereo audio nputs Can De used as a TV
w*i VCR o> Tuner Also as a video Camera rjaptay mon** Retractable stand
~#nn Stereo Speaker* Headphone Jack t ■

Socket FREEIead fc* your compuW REE
12 uortt on see service warty f* f\ A Q QC

THE MOST VERSATILE STEREO Let *T %/ a 5/0

COLOUR MONITOR AVAILABLE I

CBM 10S4S STEREO COLOUR MONITOR. Commodore's Own Stereo High Resolution Colour Monitor I ^^

with RG8MmL Composite Video/Audio Inputs Can be used as TV wKh VCR or tuner. Twr Speakers for '£269.95

stereo output Suppfcedwfficao«e3fwA500.CGAPCXttVW-i28

PMIUPS TV TUNER. ALLOWS ANY MONITOR WITH COMPOSITE VIDEO A AUDIO INPUTS TO BE USED

AS A TELEVISION SUPPLIED COMPLETE WITH AERIAL FOR USE INDOORS ALSO HAS STD EXTERNAL AERIAL £79 95

SOCKET AND COMPATIBLE WITH MOST MONITORS INC PHILIPS CM8833MK I & II. CBM 1061/4.4190071/2. *•' * /, * /%/

It's important to remember mat most TV Morwfors. are stilt first and foremost t e le vi s i ons, meaning that their average 400 pixel tube display
50% kmer resolution than a monitor i cannot be guaranteed to display SO column text clearly wtthout nskmg eye strain. It choosing a Television
Monitor ensure rt has tne latest 2000 character tube capability, meaning it can handle the Amigas' 80 characters, by 25 hne output dearly.

NEW*!' PHWPS 15" TELETEXT REMOTE CONTROL 40 CHANNEL MONITOR TV. BRAND NEW SUPERB

DEFINITION PHILIPS MONITOR TV IDEAL FOR AMIGA OR CDTV USERS. GIVING FOR THE FIRST TIME TRUE MONITOR QUALITY

FROM A FULL FEATURE TELETEXT TV AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE" 1 JUST LOOK AT THE FEATURES.. Direct Scan Connector tor

Amiga. CDTV. VCR OR SATELLITE RECEIVER RGB/AD. Composite Video & audio inputs FULL TELETEXT FACILITIES (FOR THIS

FACILITY EXTERNAL AERIAL SHOULD BE USED) Headphone Jack Socket FULL TWO YEAR GUARANTEE

^2000 CHARACTER HIGH DEFINITION FST TUBE SUPPLIED WITH LOOP AERIAL REMOTE CONTROL

iFREE lead lor YOUR computer

IF YOU WOULD LIKE THE MONITOR TV IN OUR PACK 2 3 OR 7 TO REPLACE THE 8833. PLEASE SIMPL Y ADD

£20.00 AND STATE WHEN ORDERING YOUR PREFERENCE FOR A PHILIPS TELETEXT TV.

ONLY

£279.95

AMIGA ACCESSORIES

Shown here are just a few items from our massive stocks of
extremely useful Amiga accessories, and all at terrific prices!

MEMORY EXPANSIONS

HARW000S PRO-RAMPACK £29.95

512K Memory Expansion lor the Amiga A500 that SIMPLY plugs in!
Same configuration as CBM A501 tor M compatabtty wflh West 8327A
Amiga BMter. EnaWetXsabie switch ireal fame battery backed dock.

SUPRARAM RX 500 (512K to 8Mb. RAM Expansion)

Features mdude5l2K. 1.2. 4 or 8Mb last RAM lor Armga A500
computers. Easily connects •rtemelry to s-oecar pus on left hand
sxJe of Amiga. No asmanfling of computer required Amiga bus pass
thru' allows other devices to be connected Uses 256K % A Zip OR
chips (120ns or taster) for 512K. 1Mb and 2Mb oonngurabons. U
1Mb . x 4 Zips tor 2. 4 and 8 Mb conhgurattons Four layer board to
reduce bus noise and increases reliability Zero wait states & hidden
refresh Test mode & software simplify trouble snooting Enable/
Disable switch Increase your capacity at with a great expansion'"

512K RAM Version £129.11 4Mb. RAM Version D2ttt IfWQT

2Mb. RAM Version CImm 8Mb. RAM Version tS49.» JUTOIIUIVO

COMPETITION PRO 5000 Black C7.95

Good quality, no tnlis solid stick. Mtcroswitched movement controls.

ZIPSTICK N2.95

A regular favourite. Fully mtcroswitched 'easy action*, triple fire actton.

COMPETITION PRO STAR £14.95

The ONLY joystick to obtain a 100% rating from a magazine reviewtll
The ultimate! Fully microswitched. triple fire lulty featured stick)

MISCELLANEOUS

3.5" DISK HEAD CLEANER £2.99

Essential maintenance for your disk dnve. Keep dean & trouble free.

BLANK DISKS with labels *_*..«.

10 Genuine Commodore 3.5" branded Only 19.95

10 Unbranded with library case 3.5' certified Only C7.95

200 Unbranded 3.5" certified Only £72.50

IBM PC EMULATORS

KCS POWERBOARD £234.16

Features Indude:

.V Hercules, CGA 4 Monochrome Video Support, Supports Both
3.5 Inch & 5.25 Inch Diskettes, Fits Into A501 RAM Slot, 8088 XT
Processor, flock/Calendar Included, Acts As 512K RAM Exp.
When In Amiga Mode, Includes MS-DOS 4 .0 1 , Shell & GW-B ASIC,
'i Supports A590 Hard Dnve, Mouse Driver Software Included.

REPLACEMENT MOUSE

NAKSHA MICROSWITCHED MOUSE £24.96

Amiga/ST/Amstrad PC compatible.

GOLDEN IMAGE OPTICAL MOUSE £32.95

For the Amiga.

Before you choose Irom whom 10 purchase P*ase ffve can us We are always

riippy to fricuis you' f«jurtm*n*s and answer any queries you may tore

PtOWOtf CMS* H#r«»»«U ActMt V** UMKKfl

vlv*rtO**A*viC^V^rv*«l»wa*t^bxMG*rii
NASCR and mm #** car* m lorrtao CftMcftve* « we nxWtC Gy uS|
MM gn at m»w &j«yq *oo*i am a p»w watu
PM»»oonrMNH*Wf«X)COueuTtRS if*vw*twM«* (***•***
7atr* » «w hw> «i tf met #mmi y» «oer «i n oMpamtoi. Pw*«

SMrttmt AOO-nt ardr**MO*nBylpoMiit lOt^wTiUtfmliror.
JtonQ •*> your woe* rKMncem Puh cfiea yew ** orOwnfl ton trealom
wrtf «»»mw«»M««Wk<9 <?**** you r»»*e corfcrruci P»ac<tf"
mt*9*ta*»ir&fNflt Stein* pJMmn *w *W tope funkm
prat yM hi tnty Am cn*no#a tarn* « v do*r»

FWEwttnUiMn^dirtUKUMunaoMiOR
AVK* AM»75p*mtp«miof Wdrtrtogttyottaefy UK
U««mand rmi icgont

UMl drni MivHiWil TAX FREE PACES Unon UK
m<to*\ #m v-Ming .upon iftc-T*di Pimm conua * to> orOemg rtomakort

remember after ycwe bought from mwoax.fieu.sm.^tB^

I YouwMteowwMEKkiiMtTKnncaiSiaatncmMdMwtt
<M »ncx« you r#qu« m, hup c» Mwc* v\ *ny «pw ol M vf*** yoj i«vtprfcnat«l
I NiNprai^lau>yatf>n»d»ytofpuK7WMMiiptetaw*i
*CW JNtS utmu otfonne HUM For ew «no» ojiaranm petod aananty mtycb w* K
m i Hium I FREE Of CHARGE

AnyoompuMr mrWt a yr— towrtig •mm*, m*a can D>
CDtKMO %em your lam FREE OF CHARGE ajmio f» ^jMntHMWOilAIAwMm^i
*M»r«Il4«»»oun««riuAflANTEED&,aurOvmENGlNEE(tS'

.tOVaf. MOMauMiM htttdproftoaMC^
MCC*«d««i'MirapbgandMdi«nw>«0 Ml oomta up Md tm

*-«r Morxff Mi av0? co&a\>.

pncM art mfisl YOU PAY. and there vt NO HIDO€N EXTRAS-
VAT *xJ posiage srt included, and prices ate correct at time ot gotng to
press (Pack detad* may very from time to timet Otters art suoject to
i,*d*o^»rtlQbe^met*mt$aW>^p*cks»rx3prKe*OiXor1*r$
are NOT sjppi-ed on a trial bens

sat*n mcc

Ti hV \ 'jVl 1

A#« x«\ iv«e*i A.BiMM to MM iMM o* s«|M»s« yurs or ow. ulNKitoittM
M ■• M tend yew «rtHB «n*i itonq ■•«
I n adMNEe. WlMMi UMimui Nwrend . .
•aMi tofOM pfsonnal Stkhttomi wwtori pwu *u tof tout* ol &**v
HSMlAccOtM' Wrtltfl qvOtabont 0« tQriMl

-yooaf»aeeea>Cn>r^o»o««LowbertCrf<»Cnary t

c^L^IMtop-rt>*MhomuM»«b^c(lorou<p*io«»ic»rdl-w(|

Ptease pay us a vitit where our lull range ol advertised products, at
the SAME COMPETITIVE PRICES. A MORE, is on sale. ALL UNDER
ONE ROOF 1 . In pleasant surroundings at our purpose built showroom
(See note below map). There's plenty of FREE parking dose by.

lOfiEMNGWES 9.00 til 5.00 Monday to Saturday \

9.00 til 1.00 Wednesday
Closed on Sundays

Wt ruvt MWal tptdai'ttd tystemi on ptrmirwl dlsptaty

Howtvtr, ihoutd you rtquirt a ipeciil ipKlfK product

O+montlration we will M happy to obUge Jutl phoot ut In

Khranc« to mikt It* n»c#tury aVTinj^mmU.

C[$ If

9*9

•riri

GORDON H ARWOOD COMPUTT

ims

=iE. 0E;

Tlte Closer \im hxtk. The Better ue look.

Ml tenth tiiv ilttUitltyf'\lll)h't1 !•• *i<iln<> t"i' m<-\IJiiiHhtJ> mc >>nr oitlcnit" fmiifl ut //V ctnl "(this mlivrt fur full Jennls

RMIGRHRRDDRI

THE DATAFLYER™500 FOR ALL AMIGA 500s

spec ifica no ns.

n 56 or 130 meg LOW POWER SUMUNE NEC
AUTOBOOT1NG (D6FEATABLE)
FAST 25ms ACCESS TIME
QUICK STARTUP ft AUTOPARK
OPTIONAL INTERNAL 2 - 8 MEG RAM CARD
ROBUST AMIGA COLOURED ALLOY CASE
SCSI INTERFACE COMPATIBLE WITH MOST SCSI DRIVES
NO NOSY FAN !

Price* cowl at tine tt MeM to mm EAOE

DATAFLYER 500 56 meg £369.99

DATAFLYER 500 1 30 meg C499.99

DATAFLYER MINUS DRIVE £129.99

Prices mc vat & carnage

SUPERB VALUE FOR MONEY

100s SOLD TO DATE.

The DATAf IYER 500 compneee en A»<ge cotouwd aeOy caw touting ■
t*c ol ffie ert 9CSi mtertew & or* of the leM, qiNtwf perMnft NEC
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FONTS

iioanio rerSOrMi rurus nawr

Mi 1 l«*£H

vrion HOttnr

CSUt: 3? <►
[wrung: 40

lis. is*

tea I*

Macros help you quickly tum an existing font Into something new. Here we
are ready to turn the letter G' Into an Outline version...

i loan to rersonai fonts natter

Font: fl/S

Char. #:?i <>

XSize: <*

Space: <>
Kerning:

or ion_itf.ini

Default: Q
JCUJ. |gg |0N

t>L*

l22.lSi.lii

bLLtbi
l-tbiL*.

...and here Is the result. Macros can be executed either on single letters or
on whole fonts - changing all the characters at once.

I'd like you all to dig out a copy
of the Extras disk and have a
quick play with a small program
you'll find tucked away on there
somewhere called Fed. This is
Commodore's attempt at a font
editor. At first sight it probably
seems cute, but try doing something
useful with it, like designing a 72-
point script font, and you'll quickly
discover that Fed is little more than a
multi-storey compost heap.

But now an Italian software
house by the name of Cloanto has
come to our rescue with Personal
Fonts Maker. (Cloanto seems to like
calling its package PFM. but Personal

Paul Ockenden looks at an Italian
font editor package. Is it the best
thing since sliced spaghetti, or
complete overkill?

Finance Manager grabbed that one
for itself at least a year ago.) The
Cloanto program stands head and
shoulders above Commodore's
pathetic offering - but then again, I
suppose that for £70 it ought to.

By the size of the package you'd
never believe that Personal Fonts

Maker was a mere font editor - it
comes with a 320-page ring-bound
manual, plus three disks of
programs, fonts and utilities. I know
that sounds incredible, but it's true.
You see, there's one word which
sums up Personal Fonts Maker more
than any other: overkill.

THE MACRO LANGUAGE AND ITS USES

The macro language allows almost any user interface
event to be recorded and played back later, but by
entering the macro commands directly rather than In
record mode you will find that there Is much more
flexibility available.

Take a look at the following macro, for instance:

DOTM
HKB1
ORMI
BHDL
BRST
LDTD

MOVE M M
LBTU M M

CRON
XSZ+
XSZ+
CLRC
LBTD 1
LBTR 1
LBTD 1 2

Set DOT mode

Brush def'n mode on

Set OR mode

Brush handle uppr left

Brush resize stretch

Preea left mouse button in J

square ,

- Position to Max, Max

- Release left mouse button in J
square Max, Max

- Set character ON

- Increase X dimension by 1 pixel

- And again

- Erase the character

- Press left button in square 1,0

- And release it

- Same in Square 1,2

LBTR 1,2

—

LBTD 0,1

- And 0,1

LBTR 0,1

LBTD 2,1

- And finally in 2,1

LBTR 2,1

RBTD 1,1

- Right button in square 1, 1

RBTR 1,1

- And release it

ORM0

- Clear OR mode

DOTM

- And back to DOT mode

This macro turns a character into an outline version of
itself. It does it by selecting the character as a brush,
and then pasting it four times, offset from the original
character by one pixel In both x and y directions.
Finally, It re-draws the original character back in the
middle In XOR mode. The screengrabs at the top of the
page show the effect produced.

You can view macros either by mnemonics (as
shown In the listing), or In a verbose English format
similar to the appended comments. Macros can be
played back In normal or single-step mode, and can be
applied to any range of characters specified. There are
several example macros supplied with the package.

"If you're fed up with not being
able to edit Amiga fonts, this
new package could be just the
thing you've been waiting for."

Paul Ockenden

Let's take an example. Personal
Fonts Maker has its own macro
language. From this language you
can do things like change your font
into outline format, or stretch, shrink
and distort your fonts. There are a
total of 61 commands in the macro
programming language. See what I
mean about overkill?

To be fair to the package, it does
have features far above and beyond
those of Commodore's Fed. For
example, with a bit of mucking
around in FFDL - yet more overkill,
this time a Font Format Description
Language - you can download your
newly created fonts to a printer, and
thus use them from your favourite
word processor or text editor. There
are various utility programs provided,
including a rather neat one which
allows you to modify the Commodore-
supplied printer drivers in various
strange ways.

If you use the Workbench, you'll
find that the program requires at
least 1Mb of RAM. It will run on a
512K Amiga, but only if it has the
machine to itself. It works fine from a
hard disk (there is an install script
provided) and it is not copy-protected
in any way. Given enough RAM it
multitasks without problem.

In use, the program works very
much like a basic paint package. A
drawing grid is provided, with a

continued on poo* 44

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

FONTS

,;,.,,

New Font (

fr«e Font N*iwry
Loid PFH Top! C

**v» PFM Font

Wort Aniff* Tonl
Export Aniga Font
Frt* Cb*r»ct*r Set
Load otanatir 5«t
Save Character $*t
Define CharwUr S*i (
Edit Charaetor Sot
Printw lest ____^

.ant Statistics

ftftort

About
Quit

ri'vi -i .in 'i

•A • . ■ tb<l<«>

Font: §m

Our. 1:69 4>

XSizt: «►

tMM! 4»

Xtrninf: *►

Below: Personal Fonts Maker features a long list
of font attributes, plus the ability to view the
actual-size font on an interlaced screen.

ojfct Brush Macro pi^Ortncf s

Above: As well as handling Amiga fonts. Personal
Fonts Maker has Its own font format and comes
with a whole bunch of fonts In varying point sizes.

U tributes

Italic

dor tine

Outline

aoov
Superscript

Subscript
Enlaced

Condensed

Draft

Fixe* Pitch
Right to Left
dscape

■HH

TFi s Tont looks like this

continued from pogt 43

toolbox of various gadgets to perform
magic on your characters.

Pixel and Brush drawing modes
are supported, along with various
other features that make font
designing easier - things like
horizontal and vertical flips, shifts,
and the ever essential Undo. The
menus are arranged logically, and
contain all sorts of goodies for
playing with the fonts and playing
with the user interface. As I've hinted
above, this user interface is really
very good - I'd go so far as to say
superb - so the only limiting factor in
designing a font is your imagination
and artistic ability.

SUCK AND SMOOTH

The package is slick and smooth.
After a short time I found I didn't
notice the user interface at all -
everything is laid out in such a
logical manner that there's no
hunting around looking for a
particular feature.

The whole thing is... well...
intuitive. The various drawing tools
are easy to use. and the file
requesters are excellent. I wish more
Amiga applications were such a
pleasure to work with.

The program supports its own
internal preferences format which, as
you would probably expect by now,
allows you to customise just about
every feature from the various
default directories to the colour bias
of the screen. The preferences file is
saved in ASCII format, so it can be
modified using your favourite editor -
although most of the options can be
set via the user interface as well.

When loading or saving a
preferences file, there is full control
over which of the various items are
overwritten or saved. So, for
example, you could load just the
colour scheme and audio parameters
from one file, and the font details
from another.

If your printer supports
downloaded, or soft* fonts (many
do), then with the help of Personal

Fonts Maker you will be able to
download Amiga- and PfM-format
fonts, and then use them from any
application.

If you have an obscure printer,
then you will need to play with the
FFDL parameters to set things like
the byte order of downloaded fonts,
or the escape sequences needed to
switch character sets - be sure to
have your printer manual handy.
Luckily there are printer definition
files supplied for many of the more
commonly used printers, and I had
no trouble downloading fonts to my
laser printer either in LaserJet or
Epson emulation modes.

A separately supplied utility, PDM
{Printer Driver Modifier), allows you
to change the various codes sent to
your printer by the preferences
printer driver. For example, if you
think your printer is being sent the
wrong code to go into 'perforation
skip' mode, you can examine and
change that code. You can also
change the mapping of the
characters in the upper half of the
character set, so you could move the
pound sign, for example.

I mentioned that Cloanto is an
Italian software house. To be honest.
if it wasn't for the Italian-sounding
name and the address at the front of
the manual I'd never have guessed,
as both the manual and the program
itself use fluent and lucid English.

The manual itself is in A5 ring-
bound format and covers absolutely
every aspect of the program in
immense detail, right down to the
format details of the IFF chunks used
for the internal PFM-format font files.
It also contains a fairly good 'Amiga
For Beginners' section, a
'Typesetting For Beginners' section
and a simple tutorial. My only real
complaint is that the tutorial hardly
scratches the surface of the product.

PROBLEMS

I've always thought that the
expression was 'love it or hate if.
Several weeks of playing with
Personal Fonts Maker has convinced

me that the correct version of this
expression should be love it and
hate it*. I've dealt with some of the
loves, now let's get a couple of the
major hates out of the way.

First, the most frequent problem
I had with the package was that it
kept crashing my machine. Nothing
as polite as a Guru or Task Failed
requester, just a completely blank
screen which required a re-boot.
Interestingly, there's a sticker on the
front of the package saying that the
product is fully AmigaDOS 2.0-
compatible, and yet when I switched
back to 1.3 towards the end of the
review period I found that the
program bombed out on me a little
less - although it still wasn't perfect.
Maybe it was my hardware
configuration - a B2000 completely
stuffed full of goodies - but I've
never had anything else crash on me
in the same manner - or with the
same frequency - as Personal Fonts
Maker did.

My other major complaint is one
that goes right back to the
fundamental design roots of the
program, and that is that it stores its
font data in a bitmapped format. The
program can load and save its data
in both an internal PFM format and
as a normal Amiga font - both of
which are bitmapped: I can't
understand why the authors included
the internal format as it seems to
offer no great benefit over the
standard Amiga font format.

The big problem with bitmapped
fonts is that if you enlarge the
characters they become very jagged,
and if you reduce them too much
they tend to look awful.

The solution, of course, is to use
vectored fonts. There are at least
five vector font formats currently
supported by various Amiga
programs - PostScript types 1 and 3,
MetaFont, Agfa Compugraphic and
PageStream's own format - and
vector fonts can easily be rendered
to produce bitmapped Amiga fonts.
In fact, the latest version of
AmigaDOS 2.0 is rumoured to

include Compugraphic font support.
Why Personal Fonts Maker wasn't
designed around vector font
technology is simply beyond me.

IN CONCLUSION

In summary, I think there's probably
a great programming team and a
great user interface designer sitting
somewhere in Italy trying hard to
come up with sensible ideas for
applications to use their talents on.
And failing miserably.

Don't misunderstand me -
Personal Fonts Maker is an excellent
font editor... but that's it. It's only a
font editor. Looking at the package
you'd expect a lot more from it. I
looked, but there wasn't a lot there.

If you are seriously into designing
fonts and you have £70 burning a
hole in your pocket then go out and
buy this package. If you are a little
poorer, then persevere with Fed or
check out some of the alternative
public domain font editors available
on various Fish disks.

I'm certain we haven't seen the
last of the guys from Cloanto. If they
could come up with a spreadsheet
based around the user interface
techniques used in Personal Fonts
Maker, for example, they would be
on to a sure-fire winner. Q)

ooooooooo

SHOPPING LIST

Personol Fonts Maker £69.95

(Price subject to confirmation)

Distributed in the UK by
HB Marketing Ltd,

Unit 3, Poyle 14,
Newlonds Drive,
Colnbrook,
Berkshire SL300X
» 0753 686000

ECKOUT
Personal Fonts Maker

Ease of Use • • • •

Slick and smooth.

Speed • • •

Some of the program's features take a
while to work.

Features • • • O O

In reality, the program doesn't actually do
a lot.

Documentation • • • • •

An excellent manual.

Price Value • •

At £69.95, it's somewhat overpriced for
what it does.

Overall rating

Does its job well - it's just a shame that
its job isn't particularly spectacular.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1 9V 1

Where you

Viruses, disk swapping, clicking drives, disks which won't back up. Is there no end to the whingeing of the
Amiga user?

At Power, we want to tell you just where you can stick your disks and worries. In fact we will show you.
The slot in this picture belongs to our PC880B, the first intelligent disk drive. Insert a disk.

Now you can back up at lightning speeds using the inbuilt Blitz Amiga hardware, with free software,
(even if the disk is Atari or PC) and if your computer has a virus the PC880B will stop it being written to the
bootblock of any of your drives, though you can still save files as normal.

rhru'pori

Isolating Swh

lop Quality Me< hani

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Bii!/ r l.ird.
rus 1 1.

When you do not want these features, switch them off and the PC880B will sit quietly, without clicking,
pretending to be simply an extra drive.

The PC880B, the only drive to introduce Blitz Amiga, the power anti-click device and to combat viruses,
is only available direct from Power, priced at just £65.

We have noticed how pricey unintelligent drives are. Perhaps, its your turn to tell people where to
stick it.

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II i* illeftal tnm^lie <op*ev. even dw »>hj' !•*•" u >»■ <■'

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3. PUBLISHERS PACK

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Pack Price £,00:7 95

6. STANDARD PACK

• A500 Computer Pack

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Pack Price &C97

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For extra 512K memory on packs 4, 5, 6 (fitted) add only £24.95 (£28.95 with clock)

• NEW * AMIGA ADDED VALUE OUTFIT PACKS

All packs come with the Amiga Value Pack of your choice (choose from above)

MONO PRINTER PACK COLOUR P RIN TER PACK

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COMMODORE
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A590>/2Meg £275

A590 ♦ 1Mb £309

A590 + 2Mb £330

1Mb and 2Mb

Upgrades fitted

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ACCESSORY PACK 1

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computer flustcover RRP £9.95

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PACK PRICE £29.95

ESSENTIAL

COMPUTER

ACCESSORY PACK 2

•Nahshahighquafctypowermouse. ..RRP £34.95

* Ugh quality mousepad RRP £895
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COMMODORE A5Q1
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I* Official 512K Ram upgrade for A500

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pack i AMIGA PERIPHERAL PACKS pack 2

Megaboard Ram Expansion RRP £49.95

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20 3.5' DS/DD disks with labels ...RRP £19.95

PC 880 3.5" disk drive RRP £89.95

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UNIT 3, FORGE CLOSE, LITTLE END ROAD, EATON SOCON, CAMBS

FROM THE POWER HOUSE

1.5Mb A500 Ram expansion card £79..00

Blitz with PC880 drive £65.00

Blitz Turbo £19.95

A500 anti-click board £15.00

Power mouse £14.95

Slimline hard disk 40Mb £299.00

Amiga 2000 internal drive kit £46.95

A500 internal floppy drive £46.95

amiga | DISK DRIVE STARTER KIT

'/, MF.G UPGRADE ■+ PC880 3.5" High Quality Disk Drive £89.99

BOARD ■ (Features anti-click, on/off, superslim design)

: Sw.Wc e h ign ■* Ten 3 - 5 " DS/DD disks with labels RRp £9 "

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__. ■ TOTAL RRP £11 9.96

£24.93 ■ r - Q

clock version £29.95 ■ Starter Kit Price XD^ .99

LC10 Mono

9 Pin Dot Matrix 144/34cps £149.95

LC200 Colour

9 Pin, 180/45 cps, 16K Buffer £199.95

LC24-200 Mono

24 Pm Dot Matrix, 200/6 7cps £239.95

LC24-200 Colour

24 Pin, 200/67 cps, 30K Buffer £289.95

PRINTER ACCESSORY PACK

Only available when purchased
with a printer.

* Parallel printer cable - RRP £14.95

* 200 sheets listing paper - RRP £6.95

* Quality tailored dust cover - RRP £12.95

TOTAL RRP £34.85

PRICES

Music X VI. 1

Music X Junior

Midi Interface
(In-thru-out-out)
with lead

SMASHED

RRP OUR
PRICE

£149.95 £69.95
£79.95 £39.95
£29.95 £17.99

PACK PRICE £9.95

with printer stand
£1495

hSSKNTIALA!
Disks

Pack of 10 high quality 3.5' DS/DD £4.99

Box of 10 branded TDK 3.5' DS/DD £7.99

Box of 50 3.5" DS/DD with labels £18.99

Box of 100 3.5" DS/DD with labels £35.99

Box of 250 3.5' DS/DD with labels £79.99

3.5" disk drive cleaning kit £3.99

Disk Boxes

3.5" 10 capacity Ryford box £1.49

3.5' 40 capacity lockable box £4.50

j3.5- 80 capacity lockable box £5.95

3.5' 80 capacity Van 3 (slim design) £7.95

Mouse

High quality mousepad £2.99

Mouse/joystick extension leads £5.99

Dustcovers

PYC quality covers for computer/pnnter£5.99
High quality solid Perspex dustcover ....£9.99

MICROSWITCH
JOYSTICKS

The only joysticks worth buying,
full I year guarantee!

| QUICK JOY III SUPERCHARGER
Two fire buttons, Autofire.

Six micro-switches £8 99

QUICKSHOT TURBO

Two fire buttons, Auto-fire, six micro-switches.. £9. 99

QUICKJOY VI JETFIGHTER

Two fire buttons, Autofire with fast/slow mode,

6 m/s £12.99

COMPETITION PRO 5000

Two fire buttons, steel shaft, Autofire, m/s... £12.99

2PST1CK AUTOFIRE

Two fire buttons, steel shaft, Autofire, m/s... £13.99

STINGRAY AUTOFIRE

Direct replacement for Konix Navigator £14.99

QUICKJOY V SUPERBOARD

Six fire buttons, Autofire, stopwatch,

Ten m/s £16.99

QUICKJOY TOPSTAR Highly recommended
Two fire buttons, A/f slow motion, 6 m/s,

see through body £19.99

QUICKJOY MEGABOARD

Four fire buttons, 8 m/s, M slow motion,

stop watch, countdown £23.99

l>OW

Access

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BY PHONE

Simply call our head office quoting your
Access/Visa number on

Mon-Fri 0480 403222
Sat 0480 403304

By personally calling at
our St Ncots or Hertford Shop

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6 Priory Mall,

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GOLD CLUB SERVICE

I * 7 day money back guarantee if not completely satisfied
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* All this for a nominal CtO per item over £100

PLATINUM CARD SERVICE

* All the benefits of the successful gold card service
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-* Extended 2 year ^aramee from date of purchase- Peace of mmd

for2yesn)
-* Free use of loan machine it required should yours need 10 be

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purchase)
-* i*iTc collection and delivery KtricC tw the lull two vcan should a

fault occur, (/mi make one umple phone ull and leave the rest to Hi!)
-» Exclusive platinum pnviledgcd customer card entitling you to

special otters.

^ All of these benefits for the incredible price ot iust £39.95 per item

purchased.
V A in the unlikely case ofiboruge* of identical model loan machines
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WHY CHOOSE DOW?

* ESTABLISHED OVER 5 YEARS

With a growing reputation for 'putting the
customer first". We intend to satisfy many more
customers for years to come

* TECHNICAL SUPPORT/ON -SITE
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Employing over 20 specialist staff, we are
equipped to deal with the majority of queries

* FULL TESTING PROCEDURE

All computer hardware is tested prior to despatch,
proving Dows commitment to customer care .

Prices correct at going to press but

may change without notice. E&OE.

• COMMODORE
J 1084S STEREO
! MONITOR

Including FREE lead

! ONLY £229.00

! PHILIPS 8833 MK II
i STEREO MONITOR

! Including Free Lead

; ONLY £229.00
i .........

CDTV now in stock

Open Monday lo
Saturday 9am -6pm
Callers and Mail
Order welcome
Easy parking

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GVP SERIES H

52M A500 Hard

Drive with space

for 8Mb of RAM

ONLY £499.00

AT ONCE AMIGA

PC 286 AT EMULATOR
FOR THE A500

ONLY £169.00

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{

AMIGA PACKS

SCKfcKN UKMS PACK, inc. Shadow / Beast II, Back/Future II. Nightbreed. Days of Thunder. Dpaint I
AMIGA A500, mouse, modulator, power supply, Workbench 1.3, Basic Tutorial and manuals

I CARTOON CLASSICS inc: 1Mb Ram. Lemmings. Simpsons. Captain Planet. Deluxe Paint 3.

| CLASS OK THE 90S KIRST STEPS, inc. Extra 512K. Pr -Write. Info File, Dpaint * Dpnnt U etc

■ CLASS OK THE 90S. inc. Extra bl2K. Publishers Choice, MaxiPlan, BBC Emulator, Midi Int. etc

[ AMIGA CREATIVITY PACK, with Word Processor, Music & Paint packages, 3 games * Tutorial Video.

All Amiga AbOO's supplied with mouse, modulator, manuals, workbench, Basic + Tutorial

**. -» ■ I »»W"*Wt *M »t WMm i» HtM llM m tl H II II IIMI i l

£359.00

£309.00

£369.00

£515 00

£359.00

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r— | AMIGA ASOO FUN PACK

& > ? aa a* ■■_.-* ■ _.__ ** t_ t\ lit i_i \_ if-.B_ u ^i l^^i^a r

, Amiga AbOO, Mouse, Modulator, Manuals, Basic Workbench, Tutorial. Joystick. Disk Box, .

10 Blank Disks Dust Cover Dpainr m PLUS 13 GREAT GAMES Lemmings, Simpsons,
| Captain Planet, Sur Wars, Toobin, Barbarian II. Licence to Kill • James Bond Game, I
I Running Man • With Schwarzenegger, APB. Xybots, Dragon Spini, Hard Dnvin, Voyager,

1 Meg of Ram

ONLY £399.00

Amiga A500. Mouse. Modulator. Manuals. Basic. Workbench. Tutorial Joystick. Disk
Box, 10 Blank Disks. Dust Cover. Dpaint II. PLUS 10 GREAT GAMES Star Wais. Toobin.
Barbarian II. Licence to Kill - James Bond Game, Running Man - With Schwarzenegger.

APB, Xybots. Dragon Spint. Hard Dnvin. Voyager

ONLY £359.00 1 MEG VERSION £389.00

SOFTWARE AND DISKS}—

3D PROFESSIONAL £209 00 PLXEL3D £49.00

AMOS * EXTRAS DISK £32 00 DELUXE PAINT m £29 00

BROADCAST TITLER II £169.00 PRO-WRITE V3,l £85.00

TV SHOW £55 00 EXCELLENCE V2 £89 00

DIGIVEW GOLD V4 £95 00 TITLE PAGE £109 00

LATTICE C V5.1 .. £149 00 PROFESSIONAL PAGE V2 £169 00

PAGESETTER V2. DTP £47 00 VIDEO EFFECTS 3D £109.00

PAGESTREAM New Version 2.1 £129.00 X-CAD DESIGNER (1 Meg) £6900

PAGESTREAM FONTS £49.00 X-CAD PROFESSIONAL £129.00

TV TEXT PROFESSIONAL £79 00 WORDWORTH £85.00

CROSS-DOS. Multilormat file transfer £23.00

HITACHI 720 VIDEO CAMERA Ideal for DigiView £199 00

PEN PAL, Excellent Word Processor (1 Meg) £55 00

IMAGINE 3D Animation & Rendering software £149 00

ART DEPARTMENT PROFESSIONAL £119.00

ALL IN ONE, Art package. Word Pro * Music package £49 00

VIDEO EASE. Video wipes, titling package £35.00

PHOTON PAINT II, HAM Art * Animation £25.00

AMOS CuMPILfcK * ,...** ~+ tZJ Uu

THE WORKS PLATINUM. Integrated package £62 00

GOLD DISK OFFICE £105 00

DOS 2 DOS Mulu-format We transfer £33 00

WALT DISNEY ANIMATION STUDIO (1 Meg) £69 00

ortL I A/\ WVJLvJU A . ..,* M tfw mwiMH M..t,t.MM". * * L33 .vV

X-UTJLrnES... £34 00

AMIGA AlSOO

The A1500 inc. Philips 8833 or CBM 1084S monitor. Twin Drive,

Dpaint3, The Works Plat., +4 Games, ONLY £859.00

AMIGA A500 part exchange available - please phone

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HARDWARE \

Llr.pcp i^ted

2m RAM „_

[ COMMODORE A590 20MB Hard Disk.
> COMMODORE A590 20mb Hard Disk -

I FRAME GRABBER PAL

| RENDALE B802 Genlock. A500/B2000

■ AUDIO ENGINEER Sampling hardware/software

J SOPHUS S5 Professional Stereo Sampler ....

[ KCS POWERBOARD. PC Emulation (A500) with MS DOS
I AMIGA compatible external disk drive, swscn plus thru port
| GVP 52MB SCSI hard drive & 8M RAM Board for ASOO

>■"» *

£285 00
D39 00

£44900

£18500

£169 00

149.00

£21500
£57 50

■ GVP 52 MEG SCSI Drive plus 8 Meg Ramboard for 1500/2000

j GOLDEN IMAGE HAND SCANNER with software phis Photon Paint
! NAXSHA CLONE MOUSE ....... „ .

£499.00

£419.00

.£19.95

PRINTERS

i i 1 |

j STAR LC-10 MONO PRINTER inc. Lead £159.00 J

STAR LC-200 COLOUR PRINTER inc. Lead £209.00

STAR LC-24/200 MONO PRINTER inc. Lead £249.00

I STAR LC-24/200 COLOUR PRINTER inc. Lead £297 00

I CITIZEN SWIFT 24 MONO inc Lead £279.00

I CITIZEN SWIFT 24 COLOUR inc. Lead £275.00

I CITIZEN 124D 24 Pin Mono inc Lead £195.00 I

I CITIZEN 120D Plus. 9 Pin Mono inc. Lead £139.00 I

I CITIZEN SWIFT 9 COLOUR inc. Lead £179.00 I

I CANON BJ10E bubble jet inc. Lead £255.00 I

I J

AMIGA MEMORY

SUPRA RX500 8M Board for A500 inc 1M £125.00

SUPRA RX500 8M Board for A500 inc 2M £159.00

B2000/1500 Microbotics 8M Ram Board * 2 Meg RAM £159.00

Extra 2 Meg Ram for above board £75.00

A500 TARGET 512K Ram. With Clock + Switch £29.00

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SUPRA/BAUD BANDIT MODEMS

Hayes Compat Auto-dial/answer, V21, 22, 22bis £124.00 Supra 2400 Plus, MNP5 + V42 Bis (speeds up to 9600) £189.00
As above but includes MNP5 error correction £149.00 New Supra 9600 Modem (speeds up to 38000) £399.00

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1

HOW TO ORDER:

Either call our number

below with your credit

card details, or tend a

cheque /PO or credit

card number and

expiry date to our

address. Make cheques

payable to

THE 16 BIT CENTRE

Price* subject to change without
notification

All prices include VAT + Courier Service

16 BIT CENTRE

Units 15-17,

Lancashire Fittings Science Village

Claro Road, Harrogate HGl 4AF

Tel (0423) 531822/526322

EXTENDED WARRANTY

AND MAINTENANCE

CONTRACTS AVAILABLE

ON ALL ITEMS. PLEASE

CALL FOR FURTHER

DETAILS

CONTENTS
AT-A-GLANCE

A1000 57

Action Replay 67

AMOS 57,66

Assembler 52

Big Alternative Scroller. 60

C 51,59

CAD 68

COBOL 60

Comms 60

Database 51

Date) modem 60

Dlgl-View 59

Digitising 59

DPalnt III 52

Fan noise 65

(loppy disk drives 59, 70

Gary chip 68

Graphics 57. 59, 67

Hard disks 57, 67. 68

Icons 60

Imagine 67

Keyboard settings 52

Unking machines 52. 66

Modems 60. 67

Monitors 67

NorthC 59

Parking disk heads 68

PC graphics 68

Printing from AMOS 66

RAD: disk 57

RAM expansion 52. 65

Real 3D 51

RS232 66

Screen redrawing 51

Screengrabbing 67

Scrolling text 60

SCSI...... 67

Serial links 52

Sony disk drives 59

Startup-sequence 51

TIFF graphics 68

Video tape 70

Video titling 57

Word processors 59

Works! - Platinum 52

Z80 assembler 57

OUR EXPERTS TACKLE YOUR REAL-LIFE PROBLEMS

SO WHAT DO ALL THOSE ICONS MEAN?

Beginners:
this icon
will appear
next to any
questions which are
'basic' in content.

General:
this icon is
used for
any

general Amiga-related

queries.

Caution:
be sure
that you
fully

understand the answer
before trying it out.

could we I

Danger:
the answer
to this
question
nvalidate

your warranty - or you!

M Hardware:
this icon is
used to
denote
questions relating to
general hardware.

Buying
advice: we
use this
kV^I icon if the
question asks us for
buying advice.

Printers:
this icon
^2 denotes a
query
about printers, printer
drivers and so on.

Technical:
any

queries
about
programming will have
this icon next to them.

Video: this
icon

relates to
any query
about using your Amiga
with video hardware.

Music: this
icon is for
questions
about

MIDI, sampling,

synthesisers and so on.

Programs:
any

program-
specific

queries have this icon

next to them.

Comms: if
your

question
relates to

comms, this is the icon

that we.ll use.

10]

JljJJjJiJb-

WHATEVER YOUR PROBLEM WITH THE

That's the task we have set ourselves In giving you the best
possible support for your Amiga. We are confident that our experts
can cop© with any technical questions you can throw at them. If
they don't already know the answer to your problem, they will find it

out for you.

We are prepared to deal with any problem you have with the
Amiga, from general enquiries about AmigaDOS or Workbench,
through questions about specific pieces of software and hardware,
to advice on what you need to buy to do a particular task. If it's to
do with the Amiga, we will help out. What we cannot do is offer this
service over the telephone - do not phone us with your enquiries,
but write to us at the address below.

We also cannot enter Into personal correspondence - all
enquiries will be dealt with in the pages of the magazine. This does
mean a bit of a delay in solving your problem, but you'll Just have to
be a little patient and waft for it to appear in print. You won't get a
personal reply even If you enclose an SAE with your letter.

Send your question on the form below to: Amiga Answers, Amiga
Shopper. Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW.

The Amiga Answers panel consists of all three of Amiga
Shopper's consultant editors - Jeff Walker, Mark Smiddy and Phil

AMIGA, WE ARE HERE TO SOLVE IT

South - and, of course, our resident technical editor Cliff Ramshaw.
We will also be calling on the services of all our other contributors,
so you won't be able to catch us napping whatever the subject of
your query.

Each panelist will be dealing with queries In their own specialist
area(s) so it would help us greatly if, when writing, you label your
query envelope with the name of the expert who can solve your
particular problem. Below Is a list of their areas of expertise. It's a
list that we will add to and update every month, so you will know
who to write to about any subjects not mentioned here.

Gary Whitetey -
Stewart Russell
Paul Overaa -
Mick Draycott -
Jeff Walker -
Mark Smiddy -

Phil South -
Jolyon Ralph -
Cliff Ramshaw -

Video

Comms, CAD

Programming, music

Hardware, programming, MIDI

Desktop publishing, programming

AmigaDOS, business. CDTV, hardware projects,

hard and floppy disk drives

Public domain, graphics. AMOS

Programming, hardware

The really hard stuff that no-one else can answer

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If you send in a question for the Amiga Answers experts, please fill
in and Include the form below (or a photocopy if you don't want to
cut up your magazine). And please also make sure that you include
all the relevant details - version numbers of software and so on -
so that we have the best chance of helping you. Send your form and
question to: Amiga Answers, Amiga Shopper, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath
BA1 2BW. Sorry, but we cannot personally reply to any questions - even
if you include an SAE.

Hard disk:

Mb as DH : Manufacturer

Extra RAM fitted - type, size In Mb and manufacturer

Details of any other hardware which could help us to answer your question:

Name:

Address:

Now, use this space to describe your problem, including as much relevant
information as possible. Please continue on a separate sheet If necessary.

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Your machine:
A500 □ AlOOO □

A2000 ^1 A3000Q

Approximate age of machine:

A1500 J

Kkkstart version (displayed at the Insert Workbench' prompt)

1.2 □ 1.3 Q 2.x □

Workbench revision (written on the Workbench disk)

1.2 □ 1.3 □ 1.3.2 □ 2.x Q

PCB revision (If known). Do not take you machine apart Just to look

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for this!

Total memory fitted (see AVAIL In Shell for 1.3 Workbench)

Chip memory available (see AVAIL In Shell)

Agnus chip (If known)

Extra drive #1 (3.5V5.25 ') as DF„: Manufacturer

Extra drive #2 (3.5 H /5.25") as DF_: Manufacturer

AS 7

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AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

NMM.

OVERSCAN MISSING

After several years of
using Amlgas. first for
word processing, DTP
and spreadsheets,
I have recently become Involved In

using the Amiga for its highly

acclaimed graphics capabilities.

However. I seem to have
stumbled across a very annoying
flaw In the graphics handling of the
machine. When I render pictures
with Real 3D in high-res, 16-colour
PAL overscan they seem to be
displayed as NTSC Images (that is,
there is a blank space at the
bottom of the screen where picture
information should be).

Since then I have also found this
same problem with some other
graphics programs. What's up. Doc?

M C Gagen

King's Lynn

Norfolk

The problem is not really to do with
the software you are using. It's
actually an Amiga operating system
shortcoming, and can easily be fixed
by first adding a public domain
program called PatchMrglo the C:
directory of your boot disk and then
by using a text editor such as Ed to
add a line like the following to your
startup-sequence:

ciPatchMrg >NIL:

After re-booting with the new startup-
sequence all should then be clear,
bright and full-screen. Don't forget
that you should work on a backup of
your boot disk.

If you can't easily find PatchMrg,
it is included in the c: directory of
Sca/a (from Digital Vision) and I've
confirmed with the company that it is
actually PD. GW

ORGANISE A DATABASE

As I read through a
computer magazine.
I grade each article

I find of Interest from

1 to 10. 1 also make page notes and
other Information, the Idea being to
create an index of all the articles in
each magazine.

I tried to create a database
using Scribble! to hold these
indexes, but I found that I had to
open a new database for each
magazine. When I open the
database I bring up the old one.
click on 'Copy Design', name it with
the new issue of the magazine and
get the message "DB has been
created" but if I close this database
and then try to reopen it I get the
message "Error reading file".

Where am I going wrong? Is ft
possible for me to open Just one
database with all my magazine
articles In It and. If this Is so, how

can I save myself a great deal of
repeat typing?

HM Joel

First. I hope that you are referring to
the database part of the Scribble!
package, Organize!. Scribble! itself is
a word processor and completely
unsuitable for the use you intend. If
we assume that you are using the
database, then you have not grasped
the basics of storing data.

As you have suggested at the
end of your letter, one database is
sufficient for your needs. Fields
(areas for input) are defined
according to the data you wish to
store. Enter the database and select
New' from the Project menu. Then
select the 'Add' button and start
defining the database fields. The
first requirement is to give the field a
name. This is equivalent to the
question prompt. For instance, if you
want the first field to record the
magazine name, then call it
"Magazine". This would be a text
field because we will not be
performing any mathematical
calculations upon the whatever is
typed in to this field.

For example, you could set up
field details such as:

Field Name Width Type

Magazine
Issue
Article
Page

20
2

20
3

Text
Text
Text
Text

Note that although some of the
responses to the prompts will require
numeric input, the field is still
defined as a text field. This is
because we will not need to perform
numerical calculations on them.

Once all the fields have been
added, we then save the database,
which stores the information on to
disk. Note that this does not record
any information other than data
about the structure of the fields. Give
the database a name, something like
"Magazine. db" should do. and then
click on Resume. We now have to
open our database to enter the
information we wish to store in it.

Select Open from the Project
menu and click on the Magazine. db
file. Now you can input information
into the database, filling each field
as you go. As for repeat typing, just
copy one record (the entire set of
fields for each entry) to another with
the Copy command and change
whatever bits you find necessary. MD

SCREEN REGENERATION

I am writing an

Intuition-based

graphical package In C.

Each change to the
screen requires the whole image to
be regenerated from scratch. This Is

JARGO

BUSTING

Bltplane/bltmap - a bitplane is an area of memory where every binary

bit corresponds to a pixel on the screen. One bitplane represents
a monochrome image, several can be overlaid to represent a
colour or grey scale image.

Database A program that enables information to be stored and retrieved
in a structured manner. Information can be categorised according
to a user's preference, and searched for according to user-
specified criteria.

Intuition - The part of the Amiga's operating system concerned with

window handling, menus and so forth. It interprets user input from
the mouse and sends information to the relevant windows via the
Intuition Direct Communication Message Ports.

NTSC - National Television Standards Committee. This is the name for
the TV colour-coding system used in the USA and some other
countries. The standard has 525 horizontal lines, running at 60
fields and 30 frames/second.

Overscan - A way of achieving a resolution higher than the Amiga's

standard by utilising the border areas of the screen which are
normally left blank.

PAL

The other main TV colour coding system which is in use around
the world and was developed in Britain. PAL refers to Phase
Alternate Line. In fact, there are several hybrid PAL systems in
use. all of which are slightly different.

where my problem lies: the
regeneration takes too long for the
package to be remotely usable.
I then had the Idea of introducing a
primitive form of double-buffering,
using two windows. All regeneration
would be done in the back window,
then when It was finished the back
window would be brought to the
front and the cycle would repeat.
I don't know If this works because
since making the above radical
changes to my program It Gurus
before I get a chance to try It out.
Obviously I have introduced a major
bug here, but ft is rather elusive.

Is the above method of double-
buffering going to give me a
speedier update. Is my method
feasible or Is there a better way of
achieving a faster update?

Lee Allen

Maidenhead

Berkshire

Your basic idea of switching between
two Intuition displays is OK. but
you've given so little detail about the
code you've written that it is difficult
to tell where your current problems
might lie. First off. are you using
SuperBitMap windows (which have
their own display memory)? If not,
and you have opened two full-sized
windows of other types in the same
Intuition screen, then you are
effectively attempting the impossible
task of trying to double-buffer with
only one set of bitplanes available.

Swapping at the Intuition level is
certainly the easiest thing to try first.

but my choice if I were looking to
implement such a scheme would be
to open two custom Intuition screens
and then open a full-size borderless
backdrop window in each of them.
That approach will provide full
Intuition object/message support,
and still let you work with the display
memory in any way that you see fit.
I'd then swap screens (rather than
windows) using ScreenToFrontO,
combined with WaitTOFO to sync the
display changes.

You're not going to know whether
this sort of approach would be
satisfactory for your application until
it is up and running. Double-buffering
buys you a bit more graphic
generation time, but basically the
real benefit is that the intermediate
drawing operations are hidden so the
end result is smoother animation.
Your problem, as I'm sure you
already know, is that of generating
your graphics within the frame time
available - so your coding efforts
need to be concentrated in the
direction of increasing the speed of
your drawing/update routines. The
conventional Amiga double-buffering
technique uses two sets of bitplanes
(together with the BitMap structures
and associated copper lists and so
on). You can find the full details in
the Addison-Wesley Libraries and
Devices ROM Kernel Manual.

Incidentally, have you checked
the Guru number when your program
crashes? It might through some light
on your current problem! PAO

continued on page 52

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

continued from poge 51

SERIAL UNKERS

I've got an Amiga 2000
and a 500 currently
linked using Parnet. All
I can manage Is device
sharing; I can't take over one
machine from the other. Is there any
other networking system I can use?

Also, I would like to use
RomWack via the serial port (to
debug on one and press RMB when
the other Gurus). What do I connect
to what? I think It's a normal null
modem lead:

Pin 7

System Ground — Pin 7

Pin 2 (TXD)
Pin 3 (RXD)

(RXD)Pin3
(TXD) Pin 2

Is this correct?

Can I use the serial connection
to run tasks on the other machine -
that Is. use one machine as a
terminal of the other?

Also, the serial cable will have
to be 10 metres long. Will I get any
trouble with data loss? (My parallel
cable Is 10m long and working OK,
but can they both be plugged in at
the same time? I think there may be
some trouble with feedback or
interference.) Bear In mind that
I want to connect a T-switch to my
serial port - one when I want to use
the printer and the other to connect
to the remote computer.

Nick Taylor

Sunderland

Tyne and Wear

Parnet can only share devices, and
does not support remote processes.
Your null-modem cable wiring should
serve, and can be used to run
remote tasks by issuing 'NewShell
AUX:* on one machine, and running a
comms terminal at the other end.
More advanced networking requires
the application of serious money.
(However, see the AmigaDOS column
this month for details of how to
create a basic two-machine network
in a very low-cost way.)

Interference between the ports
should only be a problem if the serial
Ring Indicator line (pin 22) is
connected. As this is not the case,
you ought to be OK. You might get
away with an unshielded cable

LISTING BREAKS

Because of the width of the
magazines columns, we
occasionally have to break listings
across two or more lines. Where
this has occurred, and you should
enter two or more lines without a
[Return) between them, we have
used the following symbol: J

(telephone cable is dirt cheap) but if
there's a lot of electrical kit about
your place, you may have to spend
more on shielded cable.

I have strong reservations about
using a T-switch on any computer
equipment. You'll be OK if you never
switch it while anything is powered
up. though. SCR

HUNKY DORY

I own an Amiga A500
with a 1.5Mb memory
upgrade and am a keen
machine code
programmer. I'm writing an
assembler for my A level project and
was wondering whether you could
explain In detail how the overlay
hunks In a file work (I'm writing a
disassembler too).

Also, I need help with how to
create filled 3D graphics (especially
'doughnuts' and cubes) using
assembler.

Ben Cole

Wallington

Surrey

There's no way that any of your
questions can be answered in detail
because the answers would fill this
issue (and probably the next) from
cover to cover. I can. however, point
you in the right direction as far as
getting some technical help goes.

First your question about overlay
hunks: the idea with overlays, as I'm
sure you know, is that instead of
having a complete program in
memory you only load a part of it and
bring in additional code sections as
they are needed. The original ALINK
linker and the subsequent BUNK
linker support an automatic overlay
system which, providing it's been
given the right directives, will handle
the loading and unloading of overlay
segments automatically.

As the first step, the programmer
will create a set of source code files
which are compiled/assembled as
per normal to produce the
appropriate object code modules. It
is then up to the programmer to
create a MAKE file which uses the
linker's OVERLAY directive to specify
the overlay tree. The output from the
linker when overlaying is, as per
usual, a single binary load file - but
it consists of all the code and data
sections together with information
about the positions in the file of the
nodes' of the overlay tree. At run-
time, incidentally, the whole of this
overlay process is transparent - an
overlay supervisor handles the
loading and unloading of the overlays
without the program even knowing it
is being done. All of the technical
details you need can be found in The
AmigaDOS Manual (Bantam Books
ISBN 553 35403 5).

As far as the 3D graphics
question is concerned, you need to

JARGO

BUSTING

Device - An AmigaDOS concept, creating a general means of

communicating with various peripherals such as disk drives.
printers, modems, the keyboard and so on.

Keymap - One of several files that are used by the Amiga to translate key
presses to the relevant characters for a given country, since
different countries have different layouts for their keyboards.

Linker

A program which joins together the various segments of code
produced by a compiler, along with any relevant library routines,
and produces a finished, executable program.

ROMwack - A debugging program retained permanently in the Amiga's

ROM. It can be accessed when the machine crashes by attaching
another Amiga to the serial port. Then a programmer can
interrogate the crashed Amiga and hopefully discover the cause of
the crash.

get hold of information on the
underlying generation/fill/surface
algorithms; There are plenty of
decent books around but
Fundamentals of Three Dimensional
Computer Graphics by Alan Watt
(published by Addison Wesley. ISBN

201 15442 0) would be as good a
place to start as any.

Once the various algorithms are
understood, it is arguably no harder
to translate them to assembler than
to any other language (although it
obviously takes longer). Whenever

1 have to tackle this type of coding

I opt for using language-independent
program design techniques such as
the Warnier diagram.

These design techniques are
easy to learn and are very powerful
because they provide a basis for
breaking down large problems into
small but coherent portions of the
problem which are then far more
easily tackled.

There just isn't the space to
explain how these design techniques
are used with assembler, but you
might be interested to know that
Kuma Software is publishing a book
called Program Design on the Amiga
(ISBN 745 70032 2) which
includes very detailed examples of
these types of techniques using
pseudo-code. Basic. C and 68000
assembly language. PAO

A KEY CHANGE

I have a problem: when
I try to change the
keymap to -gb" on the
Setmap icon of the
Works! - Platinum disk, It doesn't
appear to have any effect. Trying a
different approach, I copied the 'd'
file on the Extras disk inside
devs/keymaps into my
DEVS:keymaps directory. However,
when I did this I experienced the
same problem.

In addition, how do you remove
jagged lines from a DPalnt III

printout, and how to draw coloured
lines on a white background.

B Blake

Hinckley

Leics.

If you take a look at the S;startup-
sequence on your Works! - Platinum
disk, you should find an entry like
this:

SYS:System/SetMap usaO

The correct solution to the SetMap
problem is to make sure that you
have the Devs/KeyMaps/gb file on
the disk, and then to alter the above
line so that it reads:

SYS:System/SetMap gb

You could ue the method you were
attempting if you ensure that the gb
file is inside the Devs/KeyMaps
directory and then select Info from
the Project menu on Workbench.
Type the following into the Tool Types
gadget:

KEYMAP=gb

The jagged lines on your printout
from DPamt III arise from the way
picture information is stored by the
program and displayed by the Amiga,
and cannot be avoided.

The white background is no
problem - simply change the
background colour with the palette
menu on DPaint III to white instead
of black or set the pnnter/graphicsl
element of preferences on your
DPaint disk from Positive to
Negative. MD

MAMMOTH EXPANSION

I^B I have an Amlg.i 1000
with 512K of RAM. It is
now proving to be very
limiting and I am
thinking of upgrading It. My worry is

(Mtmd on pop 57

B4 AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

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continued from page 52

that I may be spending money on an
obsolete unit. I am particularly
Interested in digitising, animation
and arts packages, which tend to
be very memory-hungry. Is it
possible to upgrade my A1000. and
how would you suggest that I do It?
Which hard disk and how much
extra RAM would you advise?

I was also disappointed that
when I first bought the A1000 I also
bought Dip- View 1.0 and found that
it would not work with my colour
camcorder - only with a black-and-
white camera. Will the latest
version, Digf-View Gold, work with a
colour camera and can I get 768 x
592 resolution with my A1000 plus
extra memory?

A Proctor

Chester

Cheshire

I would advise that you get a
minimum of 2Mb RAM and as large a
hard disk as you can afford.

It is actually possible to fit an
A590 20Mb hard disk to an A1000,
if you don't mind it being back to
front. You can also add up to 2Mb of
RAM to the A590. So that's one
cheap and dirty option. Otherwise,
you could scout the small ads as you
can sometimes find A1000 memory
cards (such as Insider II) being sold
off cheaply.

But to be honest, since you are
interested in graphics and animation,
I think that you would probably be
better off changing to a second-hand
B2000 or new A1500. both of which
offer far better expansion
possibilities than the A1000. Make
sure that the model you buy has the
Fatter Agnus chip fitted and working,
though! It is possible to upgrade the
A1000 but it probably isn't worth the
cost in the long run. Incidentally,
since I have an old A1000 myself I'd
be interested in readers' comments
about extending their useful life.

On the Digi-View 1.0 question. I
think you will find that a colour
camera will work successfully, but
only if you have a way of splitting the

colour signal into the RGB
components required. To do this you
will need a colour splitter {see page
59 of this issue for details). The
same is certainly true of the current
Digi-View Gold, and colour digitising
can be done easily with a colour
splitter. You should also be aware
that your 'old' Digi-View hardware can
use the new software - so you may
just be able to get a software
upgrade, rather than having to buy a
new Digi-View. If you change to
another Amiga, though, you will need
to buy a gender changer as the
parallel port fitting was changed after
the A1000.

I used to be able to get 768 x
592 resolution with my A1000 (with
1.5Mb memory), so you should
certainly be able to do that. GW

RADICAL SPEED-UP

I have been using the
RAD: recoverable RAM
disk to speed up my
system a bit. I have
read that FFS can be used on RAD:
but I have had no success getting It
to work. I've tried changing the
MountList entry, changing DOS
type, Boot priority and adding the
filesystem line. I have also tried
formatting RAD: with the FFS
option, all to no avail. What am
I doing wrong?

I am soon to purchase a 40Mb
hard disk, and have read that I need
to partition the hard disk to boot up
the Amiga. Will formatting hard disk
partitions to FFS be as difficult as it
Is for RAD:? I would appreciate It
very much if you can solve my
problems for me.

PWHp Chung

Cheltenham

Gloucestershire

The recoverable RAM drive (RAD:)
may be used with the Fast Filing
System (FFS) by changing the Boot
priority in the DEVS;MountList file for
RAD: to -129 and then setting the file
system entry to reflect FFS. This
appears to work without problems,
although the logic for doing this

JARGO

BUSTING

Auto boot - Booting is the process that occurs when a disk is inserted and
accepted at the Insert Workbench' prompt. A hard disk or RAD:
will autoboot. meaning that the relevant programs on them will be
run automatically after a reset or, in the case of a hard disk only.
as soon as the Amiga is switched on.

FFS - Fast Filing System. A new filing system driver that was introduced
with Workbench 1.3. Disk blocks are arranged so that large
amounts of data can be read quickly. Reads and writes are
increased in speed by up to seven times. Directory searching is
around 10 times faster and the hard disk partition limit is raised
to two gigabytes. Some older hard disk systems cannot boot with
FFS. Also, the FFS not available with floppy disks under
AmigaDOS 1.3.

seems a little bizarre. By converting
RAD: from the Standard File System
(SFS) to FFS. you will also ensure
that RAD: will not auto-boot from a
reset. If you are keeping commands
in a non booting RAD:, then you
might just as well store them in
dynamic RAM: and make better use
of your available memory.

The distinct advantage that RAD:
has over RAM: is that it is auto-
booting, and if you take this facility
away from RAD: then frankly I don't
see what you will achieve, except a
slight improvement in access time -
which is already fast - due to the
fact that RAD: is a memory drive.

Almost all the literature regarding
hard disks refers to making two
partitions: one standard partition
from which the Amiga auto-boots and
then hands control over to the FFS
partition for faster access. With the
advent of newer hard drives, this
partition is no longer necessary. It
will, of course, depend on the hard
disk in question: most new hard
disks can be formatted completely
under FFS and still be able to auto-
boot successfully. You should not
have a problem with partitioning.
Some people actually prefer two
partitions on disk, one OFS and one
FFS. If this is the case, then you
should make the OFS partition as
small as possible while still being
able to hold a few commands from
the C:, Devs:. L: t Libs: directories
and so on. and a small startup-
sequence that transfers control to
the FFS partition as soon as
possible.

Finally, there will be a slight
reduction in speed when using a
hard disk compared to RAD:.
However, it is more practical; it uses
FFS (and auto-boots) and it is much
larger. MD

MANHATTAN MAGIC

I have an A500 with
512K and am interested
in video titling. I have
already used the Video
Out from my modulator to do some
basic titling but I would now like to
take this one step further.

How do I superimpose Amiga
graphics over a pre-shot video? For
instance, I would like to use arrows
to illustrate some footage of New
York. I heard this Is possible with a
genlock but I'm not well up on the
hardware. Can you help me?

Daniel Hardy
Wlgan
Lanes

Yes. you're absolutely right - a
genlock will certainly do the job. And
you should get better quality to boot!

A genlock causes the Amiga to
be synchronised to the video signal
from a video camera or VCR. As a
result, the Amiga signal can be

Z80 Assembler

After Keith Rickard's letter in
issue 4, in which he asked for a
Z80 cross-assembler, Richard
Keeble wrote in to say he has just
the thing. The program was
written by him; it supports all
opcodes, global, local, permanent
and alterable tab ■ to, and includes
an expression evaluator.

If Keith (or indeed anyone
else) is interested in this program,
they can get It from Richard for '»
reasonable fee'. Richard Keeble
can be contacted at:
30 Glencoe Road
Ipswich
Suffolk
IP4 3PR

successfully superimposed over the
video signal - usually by 'replacing'
all occurrences of colour in the
Amiga image (the first colour in the
palette of Deluxe Paint, for instance)
with the video image.

An important point to note here
is that the quality of genlocking is
very much dependent on the quality
of the video signal input. The better
the video quality, the better the
stability of the super-imposition will
be - even on the most expensive
units. So when you're thinking about
buying a genlock, bear this in mind.
Since there is such a range of
genlocks available now. and at so
many different prices, I find it difficult
to recommend one to suit your
needs, without knowing more about
your budget. GW

BOUNCING BALLS

I want to write an AMOS
program to animate a
number of balls as bobs.
Each has a set of start

coordinates. Let's call these

( XI, Yl) (X2.Y2) and so on.

Each ball Is given a velocity In

both the x-dlrection and the

v -direction. Let's call these

velocities (DX1.DY1) (DX2.DY2)

and so on.

In the main loop, the balls are

made to move as follows:

X1=X1+DX1

Y1=Y1+DY1

X2=X2+DX2

Y2=Y2+DY2
Loop

How do I make the balls Interact
with each other realistically?
Obviously the first step is to detect

continued on page 58

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

continued from page 57

a collision between the two balls.
Thon, somehow, I think that the
balls must be made to bounce
realistically via an equation
Involving a comparison between the

balls' X and Y positions and their

velocities. It is this equation that
eludes me.

Stephen Mackenzie

Woodsmoor

Stockport

First, I've chosen to hold the balls'
coordinates and velocities in arrays.
That way a simple loop will take care
of any number of balls.

There are two equations you
need to take account of: the
conservation of momentum, and the
conservation of kinetic energy. These
two equations are:

Mi'Vi + M 2 *V 2 = M^Vi' + M 2 *V 2 '

% M^Vi* + % M a *V 2 ,a

Where V is the new velocity after the
collision.

There's a subtle complication
here. The conservation of energy
equation relies only on the
magnitude of V, not the direction,
whereas the momentum equation
relies on the directional information
as well.

Solving these equations had me
flummoxed for days, I don't mind
telling you. Then I hit on the trick. As
your problem stands, you have the
velocities resolved along the x and y
axes. For the purposes of a collision,
a different coordinate frame has to
be used.

Imagine the moment when two
spheres collide. Draw a line between
the centre of the two spheres, and
another at right angles to this. This
is the new set of coordinates into
which the velocities have to be
resolved. The reason for this is as
follows: the two balls rebound off
each other along the radial axis,
conserving momentum, but there is
no change in momentum for either
ball along the tangential axis, since
the balls' velocities along this axis
take no part in the collision.

The equations are solved by
working out the angle which the
radius of the two balls makes with
the x axis, and hence the relation of
the radial/tangential coordinate
system to the x/y coordinate system.
Then the balls' velocity vectors are
resolved along the new set of axes
and the law of conservation of
momentum is applied. Combine this
with the law of conservation of
kinetic energy for the overall
velocities of the balls, and you end
up with two extremely large
simultaneous equations.

JARGO

BUSTING

Bob - A blitter object. This is a software sprite, moved around the
screen by the Amiga's super-fast blitter.

C - A compiled language designed primarily for systems programming.

It was used to write much of the Amiga's operating system, and is
used to write many Amiga applications.

Dlgitlser - A device which takes analogue information from a source such

as a video camera and converts it to digital screen information for
use by a computer.

nicker fixer - A card which plugs into the A2000's video slot and

removes the flicker from the Amiga's interlace mode and the
visible scan lines in the non-interlace mode. Interlace mode is the
Amiga's way of doubling the vertical screen resolution, but this
normally effectively halves the screen update rate and creates a
flickering on the screen.

Hot spot - The part of a sprite or bob which is used as a reference point

for the object's coordinates. The hot spot of the sprite is the pixel
that appears at the screen position specified by the sprite's
coordinates.

Script - A collection of AmigaDOS commands. Referred to as a batch file
on other systems.

Velocity - An object's velocity is different from its speed, in that velocity

includes information about the direction of travel. For an object in
a two-dimensional screen, its velocity can be represented by two
parts, one in the x direction and one in the y. The components will
be positive if the object is travelling across and down the screen
respectively, negative otherwise.

I assumed that the mass of the
balls is equal, because doing so
results in the solution falling out
rather neatly. If you want to do
otherwise. I'm afraid you'll have to
solve the equations yourself. I've
also assumed, as they say in physics
text books, that the collision is
perfectly elastic and that there are
no frictional effects.

There's not enough space to
show you how I arrived at the
solution, but it ends up as being:

DXi'=

DXi*S2 + DX2-C2 + (DYi • DY2)-C*S

DYi'=

DYi*C2+ DY2*S2+ (DXi- DX2)*C*S

DX2*=

DX2*S2+ DXi»C2+(DY2- DYi)"CS

DY2'=

DY2*C2 + DY1-S2 + (DX2 - DXirC'S

Where DX is the velocity in the X axis
and DY is the velocity in the Y axis,
and C=cos(W) and S=sm(W). The
angle W is the given by

tan(W) = (Y 1 -Y 2 )/(X 2 .X 1 )

To make things a little clearer, here
is an AMOS listing to bounce four
balls around:

Screen Open

0,320,200,2,Lowrea
MAKESPHERES

Dim

X#(4),Y#(4),DX#(4),DY#(4>, J
DXT#<4),DYT#(4)
For 1*1 To 4

X#(I)-Rnd<319)

Y#<I)-Rnd(199>

DX#(I)-(Rnd(12)-6)/3

DY#(I)-(Rnd(12)-6)/3
Next I
Do

For 1=1 To 4
If X#(I)<-0 Then J

DX#(I)*AbB(DX#(I))

If X#(I)>«319 Then DX#(I)-J
-Abs(DX#(D)

If Y**(I)<«0 Then
DY#(I)-Abe(DY#(I))

If Y#(I)>-199 Then DY#(I)-J
-Abs(DY#(I)>

X#(I)-X#(X)+DXtt(I)
Y#(I)»Y#(I)+DY#(I)
Bob I,X#(I),Y#(I),1
If Bob Col(I)--l
For J=l To 4
If IoJ and Col(J)— 1
W#=Atan((Y#(I)-Y#(J))/ J
(X#(J)-X#(I)))

S#=Sin(W#) : C#-Cos<W#)
DXT#(I)-DX#(I)*S#*S#+ J
DX#(J)-C#"C#+<DY#U)- J
DY#(J))*C#-S#

DYT#(IJ-DY#(I)*C#*C#+ J
DY#(J)*S#*S#+(DX#(I)- J
DX#(J))*C#*S#

DXT# (J) «DX# (J) *S#*S#+ J

DX#<I)*C#*C#+(DY#(J)- J
DY#{I))*C#*S#

DY# (J) -DY# (J) *C#*C#+ J
DY#(I)*S#*S#+(DX#(J)-J
DX#(I))*C#*S#

DX#(I)oDXT#(I)
DY#(I)-DYT#(I)
DX#<J)=DXT#(J>
End If
Next J
End If
Next I
Loop

Procedure MAKESPHERES
Ink 1,0,1
Circle 20,20,10
Paint 20,20,0
Get Bob 1,10,10 To 31,31
Hot Spot 1,$11
Cls
End Proc

All of the variables must be real, of
course - there's not a great deal of
point in adding fractional velocities to
integer coordinates, because most of
the information will be lost and the
objects will move very jerkily around
the screen - if the program works at
all. that is.

I've defined the bobs simply by
drawing a circle on the screen and
using AMOS's Get Bob function. I've
used the Hot Spot function to make
the bobs' coordinates refer to the
centre of the spheres, as required by
the equation for the angle W.

As well as the position and
velocity arrays for the balls. I've used
a temporary array for storing the new
velocities after the collision. This is
because the equations for the new
velocities are dependant on the old
velocities, which must therefore be
retained for a time.

The program works fine... well,
almost. You may occasionally notice
some strange behaviour, whereby
two balls become rather attached to
each other. This phenomenon will
occur if a collision between the two
is detected and. although the
velocities are changed, the balls
move away from each other slowly
enough for another collision to be
detected, in which case they will
begin moving towards each other
again. The only remedy I can suggest
for this (and I admit that it's
essentially a bodge) is to move the
two colliding balls away from each
other by a pixel or so independently
of their velocities. This can be done
by inserting the following two lines
just before the 'End If and 'Next J'
lines, after the re-calculations of
velocities for a collision:

X#(I)=X#(I)+Sgn(DX#)
X#(J)=X#(J)+Sgn(DX#(J))
Y#(I)=Y#(I)+Sffn(DY#(I))
Y#(J).Y#(J)+Sffn(DY#(J))

And all I can say after that is. good
luck with your program! CR

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVIMtER 1QQ1

SONY SO FAR

HI have been lucky
enough to acquire a
bare Sony 3. 5-Inch disk
drive and I want to use
It with my Amiga 500. Building an
Interface and a cable are no
problem as I have access to a fully-
equipped electronics workshop.
Apparently the drive came out of an
old Apricot computer, but I don't
know which one. I hope you can
help me connect this unit to my
Amiga.

C C Smith
West Lothian

Unfortunately the drive you

mentioned is quite an old model and
I have been unsuccessful in digging
out any information on it. From the
information in your letter I can tell
you that CN109 is the data
connector, a standard Shugart-type
floppy connector. CN108 is the 4-way
power connector. Both of these
should be identical to the connectors
on your A500 internal drive. S101 is
the drive ID switch; leave this set to
1. To connect this to your Amiga you
will have to build an Amiga-to-Shugart
converter. This is a very simple
circuit involving two 74 series chips.
Details for building this can be found
in issue 6 of Just Amiga Monthly («
0895 574449). JR

QUALITY DIGITISING

I own Digi-View 4.0 but
my results are usually
of lesser quality than
the perfect Images
produced in reviews of the product,
even using slow scan. I use the
recommended black-and-white
Panasonic WV 1410 camera. I use
full daylight to illuminate my
subjects. What is the best
tracking' number to use for this
camera and for other sources such
as the freeze-frame on the Ferguson
Vfdeostar 3V53 VCR?

Could you also give me some
advice on RGB splitters for use with
Digi-View and tell me whether all
splitters work just as well on Dlgl-
Vlew as on other video digitisers?

To finish, can you tell me which
Is the better signal for recording to
a VCR from a modulator. Is It the RF
or the separate video and audio?

Paul Rose

Radlett

Herts

I use a black-and-white Panasonic
WV-1500 myself, with tracking set at
0. It works fine for me. However, if
you are having trouble, the best way
to fix it is to keep making small
adjustments until you find the
optimum settings for your system.
This also applies to the VCR.
Remember that when using a VCR
the freeze frame must be perfectly

still, or the digitised image will be
blurred. Similarly, your video camera
should be securely mounted and not
moved until digitising is complete.

It is possible that the images you
are referring to were digitised with a
rather more expensive camera than a
WV-1410. Better cameras with higher
resolutions result in better quality
digitising - especially when using the
newer. CCD chip cameras. You may
also find that the video tube in your
camera is old or has gone 'soft' as a
result of being left pointed at a
scene for too long. You must always
be careful with tube cameras as it is
extremely easy to cause permanent
damage to the video tube by using
very bright light (including sunlight)
and leaving the camera pointed at
the same image for long periods.
Cap the lens whenever the camera is
not in use.

Any RGB splitter should work on
Digi-View, as well as with other
digitisers. An RGB splitter simply
provides an electronic way of filtering
the video signal to provide the red,
green and blue components required
by the digitiser to produce the final,
colour image. Note that colour
splitters will only work correctly when
the video signal itself is in colour. I
actually built my own several years
ago. but the Rombo VidiRGB splitter
which I reviewed recently (Amiga
Shopper Issue 5) should do the job
just as well.

The best signal has to be the
video one. since the RF signal will be
a converted version of the video
signal and hence poorer quality. GW

STARTIN G SMALL

^^^H I need a word processor
^T/ ^Jbut I am also interested
^yO^ I In the various graphics
LW^LlHI applications of the
Amiga. I have around £1.500
available to spend on a system but I
want to start small.

What would be the ideal
expandable hobbyist setup for me?
Should I consider a flicker fixer and
multisync monitor from the start,
and will expanding the A1500 turn
out to be cheaper In the long run, or
should I start with the A500?

What disk drive should I
consider getting, and can I buy
software and hardware In Germany
and the USA, where everything
appears to be cheaper?

Stefan Ulanowski
London

If you want to start small, then the
A500 has to be the starting point.
The A1500 will allow you to use a
flicker-fixer, but although the cost of
this type of equipment has reduced. I
would not consider that buying an
A1500 with a multisync monitor
could be regarded as starting small
by any stretch of the imagination!

My suggestion for the use you
have in mind would be to purchase
an Amiga A500 with at least 3Mb of
RAM. The standard Commodore
1084 or Phillips CM8833 monitors
should be sufficient to begin with.
Choose the best priced hard disk you
can find. I would suggest that you do
not consider anything with less than
40Mb capacity. A smaller drive soon
becomes impractical once
Workbench and a few programs and
utilities are copied on to it.

You will also need a good quality
printer - not just for your word
processing requirements, but to
produce a reasonable quality print
from your graphics applications.
Assuming that you wish to keep the
cost down, then I suggest that you
look at some of the colour 24-pin
dot-matrix printers which are
currently available.

I am not aware of problems with
software or hardware bought in
Germany running on UK machines.
However. I would suggest that you
avoid American hardware, due to the
fact that our PAL and the American
NTSC raster standards are
incompatible. MD

NORTHC RESCUE

I recently obtained
NorthC V1.3 via Bruce
Smith Books after
purchasing the
Mastering Amiga C book. I can
unpack the disk as described, but
from then on the instructions
become less clear. I am not a total
novice to the Amiga, having owned
one for over two years, but all
attempts to create a C
programming environment from the
disk have been to no avail. Could
you provide some simple step-by-
step advice? I have an A500 with a
0.5Mb expansion installed (but only
the internal drive).

M Sutton

Waunarlwydd

Swansea

To start with it ts worth pointing out
that, in the beginning, almost
everyone has problems with C
compilers and the related task of
creating compiling environments.
With all public domain, and other
non-commercial offerings, these
problems are compounded because
the documentation is scattered
around the disk as a selection of
readme/doc files as opposed to
being presented in a printed manual.
The documentation is also rarely
aimed directly at users who are new
to the world of compiling.

To be fair, however, there is
actually a reasonable amount of
documentation provided on the
NorthC disk and now that you have
unpacked the disk it would be a good
idea to print out all of the

I SEE NO TIPS

Don't need our help? Reckon
you can do a better job of giving
advice and tips? Well, do it! As
well as asking for advice, we
want you to give it, too. If you
have discovered a useful tip for
any program, hardware,
language or whatever, send it to
us and if it's any good we will
use it on the Amiga Answers
pages and bung you £5 in
return. If you think we have got
an answer wrong, or haven't
given the full picture, give us
what you think is the right
answer - we might even cough
up some cash for that too! So
don't just sit there, get tipping
and help out your fellow Amiga
owners. Send your cunning
solutions to: Amiga Tips, Amiga
Shopper, 30 Monmouth Street,
Bath BA1 2BW.

readme/doc files that you can find.
You won't understand it all but
believe me it does help to have a
hard copy to refer to. Amongst these
files you'll find compiler, assembler,
linker and library documentation,
notes about creating bootable disks.
some NorthC questions and answers
and plenty of code examples.

As far as creating a C
environment goes, this is also
explained in detail on the disk and
Steve Hawtin has provided some
quite flexible script files which do all
the setting-up operations for you.
What ts explained in less detail,
however, are the reasons why
various things have to be done in the
first place.

First let's look at the compiler
tools (cc, NorthC, a68K, blink and so
on). These, as you've probably
already realised, are held in the 'bin'
directory of the NorthC disk, but
copies of these programs can be
moved anywhere - it can. for
example, be convenient to copy
these tools to the RAM disk when
using a 1Mb single-drive system. The
important point here is that, one way
or the other, the system needs to be
able to find these tools during the
compilation process. In a similar
fashion, the compiler will need to
know where to look for any 'include'
files and it, or rather the linker, will
need to know whereabouts on your
disk the library functions can be
found when it runs.

continued on page 60

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

contmued from page 59

As I've mentioned, NorthC
provides a series of script files - you
should also print out. a'nd study, the
ones called 'Setup-NorthC, "Single-
Make' and 'Single-Disk', because
these files are the ones which allow
you to set up your compiler
'environment' automatically. Now, all
of this is explained in the disk
documentation and there's little
point in repeating it. There Is,
however, nothing 'magic' about
these files and it is just as easy to
create alternative arrangements.

Here's an alternative scheme
which should give you the starting
point you need: after booting up from
your Workbench disk, open a CLI and
type (as two separate commands)
these lines:

oetenv INCLUDE NorthC: J

include/

assign clibs: NorthC :clibe

These statements will tell NorthC
where to find the include files and

DISK ICONS

Stuart Rumley of Tunbridge Wells In
Kent wrote in to help Paul Compton
In his endeavours to edit the RAM
disk icon. Thanks Stuart, expect to
receive a fiver in the near future.

If the RAM disk is going to be
edited, you must first copy any disk
Icon to RAM:dlsk.info using the
Shell or CLI. The following line will
do this:

copy sys: disk. info to J
ram:disk. info

Next, go to IconEd, and in the file
requester type RAMrdisk* (leaving
off the .info'). The icon can now be
edited. When saving, you must save
the fWe under a different name,
otherwise the icon will be lost after
reboot. An example name is
SYS:Ramdisk.icon'. Now you must
edit your Startup-sequence, and
include a line to copy the new icon
to the RAM disk every time you
boot. Type:

ed s/startup-sequence

before the LoadWB

line, insert:

copy sys:Randisk. info to J
ramrdisk. info

Now every time you boot you should
get your new icon.

the library files (you'll be asked to
insert the NorthC disk when you type
the assign command - insert it, and
when the 1> prompt reappears
replace your Workbench disk).

Now copy the copy' command to
the RAM disk using the command:

copy dfO:c/copy to ram:

and then replace the NorthC disk and
copy its compiler tools into the RAM
disk using these instructions:

ram: copy dfO:bin/cc to ram:
ram:copy df 0:bin/NorthC J

to ram:

ram:copy df0:bin/*68k to ram:
ram:copy df 0:bin/blink to ram:

Finally, insert the Workbench disk
and type:

cd ram:

to make the RAM disk into the
current directory.

Since the current directory
assignment is now the RAM disk, all
of your source files and intermediate
files will now be automatically placed
in the RAM disk as they are created.

Your first example program, in
the true tradition of the C
programmer, ought to be the 'hello
world' program. Create a source file
(using the Ed text editor) by typing:

ed hello. c

Now enter the most famous C
program in the world, namely:

•include <stdio.h>

main()

printf ("Hello World\n");

)

Save it (by pressing [Escl followed by
X) and then compile the program
using the 'cc' command:

cc -ohello hello. c

You will be asked to swap your
NorthC and Workbench disks a
couple of times, but essentially this
is the sort of output you'll see as the
compilation process proceeds:

1> cc -ohello hello. c

68000 Assenbler - version

2.61 (January 11, 1990)

Anderson

AmigaDOS conversion copyright

1989 by Charlie Gibbs.

Assembling hello. I

PASS 1 line nnnnn
PASS 2 line nircnmm
End of assembly - no errors

JARGO

BUSTING

CLI - Command Line Interface - a program that provides a window into
which AmigaDOS commands can be typed. Also known as the
Shell, although strictly speaking the Shell is another program that
offers a number of additional facilities over the CLI.

COBOL - COmmon Business Oriented Language, used extensively on

large computers in the commercial sector. It is also used, though
to a lesser extent, on the IBM PC and compatibles.

Genlock - A way of linking one video source (for example the Amiga) to

another (such as a video tape player) in order to synchronise their
signals to allow various video effects including overlay between
the two sources.

Library function - The Amiga has many special features, and programs

are already present in the operating system to make use of these
features. These programs, or library functions, may (and should)
be used by applications programs, obviating the need for each
programmer to write a similar set of routines.

PC emulator - A software or hardware addition to the Amiga which will
enable it to run programs written for the IBM PC. This can be
useful because there is a far greater range of business programs
available for that machine.

were found.

Heap usage: -w2047,76

Total hunk sizes: lc code,

10 data, BSS

Blink - Version 6.7 - 15

October 1986

Distillery. All Rights

Reserved.

235 Trillingham Lane, Cary NC

27511 - BBS: (919) -471-6436

BLINK Complete - Maximum code
size = 8112 ($00001fb0> bytes

That's all there is to it. Your
program, called 'hello', will be sitting
in the RAM disk waiting for you to run
it by typing its name at the CLI
window. PAO

COBOUNG IT TOGETHER

I am currently looking
to buy a machine to use
for entertainment and
for some programming
In COBOL, and the A500 Is top of
my list. The only problem Is that
I can't find anyone who can supply
me with a COBOL compiler. I have
checked with numerous PD libraries
and software distributors. Can you
help at all. or is my best option to
buy a PC emulator for the A500 and
get the software to suit that?

D A Cunnlngton
Cambridge

Unfortunately, it appears that no-one
has ever produced a version of the
COBOL language for the Amiga.
There are versions of Fortran. Pascal.
Lisp. Prolog. APL and almost every
other language - but not COBOL. A
PC emulator would be fine for using

COBOL on your Amiga; your best
choice is probably the KCS Power
board (from Bitcon Devices « 091-
490 1919). JR

SKEW SCROLLING

Following your
recommendations.
I bought the Big
Alternative Scroller for
my A500. However, It will not work
with my Mlnlgen genlock. Can you
suggest what will?

T A Carrlck
Cornwall

I spoke to Alternative Image and was
informed that they are aware of the
problems that BAS has with the
Minigen. This may not be entirely the
fault of the software, however.
Applied Design Systems Ltd. which
supplies the Minigen. thinks that the
problem could be due to an
incompatibility between the Minigen
and your Amiga. This is apparently
fixable if the Minigen is returned to
the company. The address to return
your unit to is: Queensway Business
Centre. Bngg Road. Scunthorpe,
South Humberside DN16 3RT w
0724 280222. Let us know how you
get on with this problem. 6VV

COMMS BREAKDOWN

^^^^^^ I bought a Datel
^ --^ g 4192AX modem at a

surplus electronics
(■■■■■■ shop. Being new to
comms. I thought it a bargain. No
manual was Included, but I had
some info and thought It would do.
The front panel consists of the four
test buttons (AL. DL. RDL. ST) and

(Mtmued on poge 65

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

VISA

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Prowrite 3 99.99

Quickwrite 39.95

Scribble 39.95

Transwrite 29.95

Wordsworth 87.99

WordPerfect 4.1 169.99

qa *

Amas (Sot
Audio Mad
Audio Scul|
Bars • Pipe!
Deluxe Mush
Master soun<
Musk: X (Mui
Quartet iMu:
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Ith NewteK)

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mlii i * 4 i 1 1* i

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UTILITIES

HOW TO ORDE1

ORDER BY PHONE Phone our order holline 1
Access/Visa card quoting card number, name oi

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ORDER BY POST: cheques or postal orders pa*
INTERNATIONAL' Please send name, address and
iber along with your order req.

lone

FREE PO!
Please allow up to"

JVERY (£1 overseas)

vieflBpgrade wrth clock . .29.99
Devpao/ 44.99

1MM 29.99

saVft Basic 5999

iksha Mouse ,24 90

JOYSTICKS

Comp Pro Extra Clear 13.99

Comp Pro Combat Extra 12,99

Qutckshol Python 9.99

Ouickshot Apache 5 99

Qurckshot Fhghl Sim 9.99

Ourckshot Mavenck 13 99

Quickjoy Topstar 19 99

OukAjoy Jettighter 1299

3r DISKS

Benchmark

3i" DISKS

Unbranded DSDD

Brand DSDD

£17.00

£29.00

100

£41.00

£11.00

£18.50

100

£33.50

+m* M 9 m ^+ *a*^ -ta^a— V ■ ^^ ^sT *-a* 9 i • ^*r ^^ **- * ■ * \^ ^^ f^ j a^^ . ^^ a^ Sm^\^ \^ a \^ \J

200

£75.00

500

£163.00

1000

£309.00

200

£63.50

500

£153.50

1000

£303.50

1 . _ . ~~~ 1" JT_ . Z Z. _ _ Zl TIT-T J z. n

SPECIAL OFFER 3 ? " DS/PD EX-WESTERN DIGITAL VGA DRIVERS ALL
BRAND NEW BUT HAVE BEEN FORMATTED & LABELLED. AVAILABLE IN

BLACK OR IBM GREY PRICE £25.00 PER 100 INC NEW LABEL. ONLY
10,000 AVAILABLE. DON'T MISS THIS ONE. FIRST COME FIRST SERVED

DISK STORAGE BOXES

3 1/ 2" 10 capacity (5 boxes)

£4.50
£3.00

...£3.70
£4.70

£15.00

3 1/ 2" 10 capacity* (5 boxes)

3 1/ 2" 50 capacity lockable

3 1/ 2" 100 capacity lockable

3 1/ 2" 240 capacity stackable

*brand new, but labelled "Olympia"

THESE PRICES ONLY IF BOUGHT WITH DISKS

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AUTHORISED DEALERS FOR STAR, CITIZEN,
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Access

Mulct Cat d

SIAUllsK PACK

The Klhv Ante
Ab'Ul? Cciiccn Osssics

1 his Sciivi'tEre
Classics Peck

Inc. Workbench 1.3, mouse, TV
modulator, leads. Extras disk manuals
and tutorial. Plus, Spritz Paint, a
versatile, easy to use paint package that
will allow you to explore the powerful
graphics of your Amiga

only £299.99

This pack comes with Lemmings, (the
only game ever to get a 100% rating!)
The Simpsons, Captain Planet and
Deluxe ftint 3 the incredible paint and
animation package This pack comes
complete with one meg of RAM

only £359.99

This pack comes with classic software odes
such as Their Finest Hour. Populous ♦
Promised Lands, the award winning S«m
City ♦ Terrain Editor, the amazing Batde
Chess, and the powerful animation and
graphics pack Deluxe Paint 3. This pack
comes as standard with I meg of

"*" only £369.99

M Clra k&

Take the headache out of buying a
computer with our First Choice
Computer Pack. Ideal for any
Amiga 500 computer.

Comprises:

A top quality Cruiser Black joy-
stick, Mouse Mat, Dust Cover. 10
Blank Disks and 3 Extra games

only £29.99

L2TV

Commodore
Dynamic Total Vision

What is CDTV*

CDTV combines a professional
audio system, advanced Amiga
technology and remote control,
thus creating a system with
superior sound and graphics.
We have a large selection of
software available at discount
prices

only £559.99

lAMlVSA 16UU/HUUU PACKS

Amiga 1 500 Base
Pack

The Amiga 1 500 is an Amiga 2000 with
2 floppy drives instead of the usual one.
The big advantage of the 1 500/2000
over the A500 is its ability to take
expansion internally with ease. The
Base Pack comes complete with 2
floppy drives. Workbench 1 .3, mouse,
manuals, and a separate keyboard

only £579.99

Amiga 1 500

Business and

Classic Software pack

Same as the base pack but with Deluxe
Paint 3. Platinum Works (the best
integrated pack availableforthe Amiga),
Their Finest Hour, Sim City + Terrain
Editor, Populous + Promised Lands.
Battle Chess, and Amiga Format Tips
Book

only £679.99

Amiga 1 500 Base Pack

with Commodore

I084SD

Same as the base pack but with the
Commodore I084SD monitor

only 18 1 9.99

Amiga 1 500

Business and Classic

Software Pack with

Commodore I084SD.

Same as the 1500 base pack but with
Commodore 1 084SD and the utility and
entertainment pack

only £869.99

S1AK I-UIK11=US

Star printers inc free std printer cable

The New Star
LC20

Replacing the famous LC 1 0. the LC20
is faster at 1 80cps draft and 45 cps
NLQ. The front panel now has push
button operaoon replacing the LCI0
membrane panel.other spec is similar
to the LC 10

only £149.99

Star LC200

Colour 9 pin printer with 8 resident fonts
and a high speed of 225cps draft and 45 cps
in NLQ. A4 Landscape printing

only £214.99
Star LC24-200

Mono and colour. 222 cps draft and 67 cps
LQ 10 resident fonts. A4 Landscape
printing

only £249.99 mono
or £299.99 colour

StarXB24-IO

Professional Series

Colour

The choice of many professional
organisations, this printer comes with one
year on-site maintenance. 240 cps draft. 80
cps NLQ. 27k buffer exp to 1 87k 4 super LQ
fonts and 25 LQ fonts

only £349.99

StarLC24-IO

24 pin quality at the price of many 9 pins. 1 80
cps draft. 60 cps in NLQ. 8k buffer expandable
to 37k

only £199.99

Clllllils! I ; KU>1TI=US

All Citizen printers inc free

printer cable and come with a full

2 year warranty

Citizen I24D
(Micro Decision Best Buy)

The 1 24D brings quality 24 pin output to you
atthepriceofa9pin.The 1 24D shares the same
high quality print head as the Swift 24 pin.
1 44cps draft. 48 cps LQ. 8k buffer expandable
to 40k

only £199.99

Citizen Swift 9/9x Colour

Unbeatable value colour printer. 4 resident
fonts. 1 92 cps draft and 48 cps in NLQ. Highly
recommended. This printer is also available in
a wide carriage ( 1 36 column) version

only £184.99 (80 col)
or £279.99 (136 col)

Citizen Swift 24/24x
(What Micro Best Buy)

This must be the best 24 pin colour printer for
less than £300. 8k buffer expandable to 40k.
1 92 cps draft. 64 cps LQ

only £279.99 (80 col)
or £389.99 (136 col)

We are registered dealers of Star and Citizen printers

ttMCK BfflfflT

BJIOc Bubble Jet

The BJ I Oe is a revolution in printer tech-
nology. The quality is almost as good as an
expensive laser printer yet costs less than
many 24 pin printers. Portable in size, very
quiet, and faster than most dot matnx
printers at 83 cps in LQ. Printer cable
included

Highh/ recommended

only £249.99

Auto sheet feeder
forBJIOe £52.99

Ink Cartidges...£l8.9S

l£l=L7HM! Lssei- 1

Now with 1.5 Mb of RAM as

standard from First Choice
expandable to 6 meg. 6 pages per
minute. HP2. FX. LQ. GQ
compatible. 250 autosheet feeder,
12 months on-site maintenance

only £869.99

Imaging cartridge

£119.99

The Complete

Cclcui Solution

lay
KOUfilSO

As official dealers for Rombo, we are
now able to offer this excellent pack-
age at a great price. The Complete
Colour Solution comes with RGB
Splitter, VkJi Amiga. Vidi Chrome and
Power supply.

now on»y£ 134.99

VIDI Ak'ikSA

Frame grabber.

High quality digitizing. Inc Vidi

chrome colounsing software

only £84.99

["RGB SrUHBi

Enables you to Colour Digitize
in a second. Replaces red green
blue filter set Can be used with
Digi view or Rombo products

only £64.99

The VXL is an advanced 68030 accelerator for the
Amiga 500/ 1 500/2000 with space for an optional
co-processor (CP)

VXL30 25Mhz EC only £299.99

VXL 30 40Mhz EC only £499.99

VXL 30 2SMhz EC+CP....only £479.99

The VXL 30 25Mhz EC+FPU differs from the
others in having Fast Page Mode. This allows it to
accept an optional superfast 32 bit 2 to 8 meg
RAM board running at 60ns
ICD Adspeed running at 1 4.7Mhz..£ I 89.99

1-iAKD SOAK KJIIS

Due to a bulk purchase of this

famous scanner, we are now able

to offer you high quality scanning at

a fraction of the normal cost

Complete with touch-up software

the Golden Image scanner is able ^\« r\rir-*

to pick out text and graphics at up ^"" r p» "CC

to 400 dpi Touch-up enables you O tl I V

to easily manipulate the image. willy

Ideal for desk top publishing and / *} Q QQ

presentation.
COME IN FOR A DEMO

I while stocks last I

DISCOUNT SCRWAUIE

^ uiiLuxii mm iv

Ii»i=i^iva.l1

This best selling word processor
incorporates many features found
only in a desk top publisher. Also
includes an easy to use database.
Highly recommended

now only £54.99

Simply the best graphics package available on the Amiga. Now with
Hold & Modrfy (HAM) DP* gives you a pallette of 4096 colours.
"a stunning innovation and probably the best software
package for this market" Steve Franklin MD for C B M

only £79.99 pLATlKUIfl

V4.'<JUUi£

We believe trus to be the best all
round integrated business package on
die Amijp. It comes with Pbonum
Scribble w/p, spell checker, thesaurus.
Analyse ( a "Lotus 123" compaoble
spreadsheet with 3D graphics), a da-
tabase sideways prinong utility and
communications software.

llrtAv?

< i:

Imagine, the ultimate 3D
animation rendering system

now only
£159.99!

mass HUB!

requires 2 Mb

only £169.99

only £59.99

hftfiBflBEAM vlll

A powerful DTP package for
professional use

only £129.99

Alii uraiii'iiiKi m

only £114.99

wcuDwcini-i

The latest highly acclaimed WYSIWIG
word processor. Comes with multiple
fonts, powerful theasurus. large
spellchecker. speech synthesis

only £79.99

}\W

Their Finest Hour, Sim City +

Terrain Editor. Populous + Promised

Lands and Battle Chess

only £39.99 !

eu-iiiu senwAM

Deluxe Paint3 £39.99

Pagesetter 2 DTP £45.99

Pro Video Plus - £149.99

New Amos Compiler £24.99

New Amos 3D £27.99

Sequencer One £74.99

Music X version 1,1 £99.99

Dig. View Gold 4 £99.99

GB Route Planner £34.99

3D Text Animate £19.99

Text Scroller £19.99

FU'xidump printer utility £3 1 .99

Xcopy utilities £33.99

SuperPlan Spreadsheet £29.99

MfflAlS

Hard Drives:

Amiga A590 20 Meg

for A500 mc 2 meg of unpopulated

RAM

only £289.99

or populated to 2 meg of RAM

now only £345.99

Protar Hard Drives

for the A500 with 8 meg
of unpopulated RAM

Size (Mb)
20 £279 00

*»• ttHtMffMM** t" JbO VV

50DC £S28.00

60 £54100

80 £598.00

I00DC £63800

I60DC £938 00

RAM expansion for hard

drives £57.99 per Mb

The DC range have an access
speed of 1 1 to 19ms. a 64K disk
cache and come with full 2 year
warranty. The standard range come
with a I year warranty and run at
28 to 40ms.

Quantum Hard
I Drives

(requires hard frame)

52 meg £229.99

105 meg £369.99

GVP Series 2 Hard
Disk Controller

Card

with 8 MEG of unpopulated RAM
(uses SIMM I -8/9 cards) For the
1 500/2000. Ideal for use with

Quantum drives

only £199.99

Special offer!!
HBM Genlock

same spec as the Rendale 8802
but with free Home Titler
software

only £129.99

(limned stocks)

ICD Flicker Free
Video

Ideal for use with a VGA monitor.
Gets rid of annoying flicker

only £249.99

Samsung Super

VGA Colour
Monitor...£249.99

-4^

DlSkDKlYlz
Zydec 3.5"

I meg external drive, high
quality low noise and
high reliability

only £57.99

Cumana 3.5

I meg external drive. The
best name in disc drives
now at a super low price

only £59.99

KAUSHAU'iOUSLE

This famous Hi-res mouse
now comes with Operation
Stealth, mouse mat, holder
and 2 year warranty

only £24.99

SGUlk MCUSl:

very similar to the Naksha
but without the extras

only £18.99

k'tCKlTOUS

Commodore 1 084 SD I

Colour stereo monitor. 640*256 line
resolution, green screen facility, cable

for Amiga included

only £239.99

Philips CM8833 MK2

Colour stereo monitor. 640*200 line
resolution, green screen facility, one
years on srte maintenance, cable for

Amiga included

now only £229.99

or with F 19 Flight Sim

only £239.99

ItfiM

ill*

256*4idealforA590& I Meg by I chips
suitable for 8 up boards and others;

QTY

4+..

14.99

M 79

16+

£4.49

I MEG by 8/9

SIMM boards
only £37.99

I MEG ZIPS

only £24.99

L?li?l

All our disks 3.5" disks are GUARAN TEED
FOR A LIFETIME and are CERTIF I E D 1 00%

ERROR FREE Both Verbatim and KAO double
sided, double density disks are recognised as
being of the highest quality in magnetic media

[VHIIIATIM! no I KAO I
1 IJULU l u * UUANDliU

100...
200...
300...

£4.99 £6.99

..£10.99 £13.99

.£19.99 £25.99

...£36.99 £44.99

...£69.99 £84.99

....£99.99 £124.99

400 £ 1 23.99 £ 1 59.99

500 £ 1 44.99 £ 1 89.99

1 000.. £269. 99 £329.99

Disk Labels . .500 now only £6.99

Disk Labels... 1000 now only £9.99

Llk'JULATOKS

KCS Power board PC/XT emulator

comes with Dos 4.01 only £214.99

AT Once emulator turns your Amiga into
an IBM AT compatible only £ 1 69.99 !

SUI : li/4

liAIM LiXPANSlL'NS

The ultimate Amiga A500 expansion.Take
your A500 up to 9 Mb Fits onto the side
expansion port Auto configured, no
software patching

8 Mb pop to 2 Mb £184.99

8 Mb pop to 4 Mb £234.99

8 Mb pop to 8 Mb £329.99

Take your AS00 up to 2.0 megs total RAM
with this easy to fit board

UNPOPULATED £32.99

5 1 2K POPULATED £52.99

I MEG POPULATED £69.99

1.5 MEG POPULATED....£84.99

Gary board supplied with all expansions
boards. If you have a Kickstart 1 .2 Amiga the
board will be incompatible when populated
to 1.5 Mb ^^

B12U li/uw i=3awcfsiQi«fs

Top quality Protar memory expansion for the
A500 complete with battery backed clock and
on/off switch that can be mounted externally
for easy access.

This RAM expansion will not in any

way invalidate your Amiga warranty!!

only £29.99

MAIL UliDIilLi

Order by telephone quoting your credit card
number K paying by cheque please make payable to
FIRST CHOICE. In any correspondance please
quote a contact phone number

TEL. 0532 637988

FAX 0532 637689

lUMSU ADL'lttSg /U±

COKU&TOND/UOCL TO

DEPT AS, UNIT 8
ARMLEY PARK COURT
OFF CECIL ST, ARMLEY

LEEDSLSI2 2AE

i\ im cii'Mct ?

* All prices include VAT and fast delivery

* All products are genuine UK specification

* Free postage UK mainland

* Next day delivery only £3.00 extra !

* Goods despatched same day as order
unless otherwise stated.

Personal Cheques Will Re-
quire Clearance Before We
Can Despatch Your Goods.
All Prices Correct At Time Of
Going To Press All Items
Listed In Our Advertisments
Are Ex Stock Ready To Ship
Unless We Advise Otherwise
Computers Are Always Tested
Before Despatch EAOE

COMPUTER

^ SUPPLIES

Suppliers of Discount Software since §984

Educational, Local Authority and government orders

welcome. Overseas orders please call or write for

quotations. All goods subject to availability, prices

subject to change without notice. E & E.

Prices include VAT and delivery by post.
Courier delivery available on any item £5.

TO ORDER: Please call the telephone

number listed below to place credit card

orders (Access/Visa) or send cheques/POs

made out to MJC Supplies to:

MJC SUPPLIES (ASH)

Unit 2 The Arches, Icknield Way,

Letchworth, Herts. SG6 1UJ.

Tel: (0462) 481166 (6 lines)

PROTAR PRODUCTS

Protar are a well known German company who have now

opened in the UK. They produce a range of quality

products for the Amiga at very reasonable prices All

products are backed by an impressive 1 year

REPLACEMENT warranty direct Irom the manufacturers.

NOTE: Protar products due September

PROTAR A500 HARD DRIVES

A range of drives from 20Mb to 200Mb all with an
impressive list of features:

• Optional Ram expansion up to 8Mb

• Transfer rate greater than 1Mb/ second

• Up to FIVE times faster than A590

• Drive disable switch

• External SCSI interlace

PROTAR A500 HD 20Mb version C279.00
PROTAR A500 HD 30Mb version C349.00
PROTAR A500 HD 50Mb version C429.00

FREE Courier delivery on Protar Hard Drives

PROTAR C1 41 M MONITOR

Based on the Philips CM8833 the C141M comes with a
variety of inputs and complete with leads.

MJC PRICE £248.00
FREE Courier delivery on Protar Monitors

PROTAR 1 2 Meg Memory Expansions

!/? Meg internal (trapdoor) expansion, latest

4 chip design with battery backed clock.

MJC PRICE C27.95

SUPRA 500RX EXPANSIONS

New memory expansions for the A500 • plugs directly into the
HD expansion port - NO INTERNAL CONNECTOR REQUIRED
SUPRA 500 RX EXPANSION 1Mb C1 19.95
SUPRA 500 RX EXPANSION 2Mb C1S9.95

GOLDEN IMAGE OPTICAL MOUSE

A true optical mouse • no more balls!
includes special optical mouse pad

MJC PRICE £34.95

NAKSHA UPGRADE MOUSE

280 DPI with FREE Mouse House + Mat

now also includes free Op Stealth game

MJC PRICE £21 .95

SQuik - Replacement Mouse

Same spec and design as Naksha mouse
MJC PRICE C14.95

CUMANA CAX 354 DISK DRIVE

Quality Brand name 3.5' second drive

includes thru port, disable switch

and No Hassle 1 year guarantee.

INCLUDES FREE VIRUSX UTILrTY

MJC PRICE C5995

A1 500/2000 PERIPHERALS

SUPRARAM add on Ram cards with space
for up to 8Meg of extra Ram.

SUPRARAM with OK fitted
SUPRARAM with 2Mb fitted
SUPRARAM with 4Mb fitted
SUPRARAM with 8Mb fitted

£84.95
£159.95
£225.00
£349.95

SUPRA HARD DRIVES

Usmg the fast Wordsync 2000 controller and quality
Quantum drive mechanisms.
(Al 500/2000)
SUPRADRIVE 52Mb (11ms) £389.95

SUPRADRIVE 105Mb (1 lmsl £529.95

GVP SERIES II HARD DRIVES

Quality drives with the ability to add up to

8 Meg of extra Ram on board.

(A 1500/2000)

52 Meg (11ms) version £419.95

105 Meg (1 1ms) version £539.95

GVP Series 2 controller board £199.00

SIMMS Modules - £79.95 per 2 Meg

MICROWAY FLICKER FIXER

Eliminate interlace flicker from your Al 500/2000 •

requires Multisync or a 31 MHz scan monitor.

(not PAL overscan)

MJC PRICE CI 39.95

PANASONIC C1 381
MULTISYNC MONITOR

At last a quality multisync monttor at an affordable price.

Works m ALL Amiga modes ideal for use with the Microway

Flicker Fixer. A quality product backed by TWO YEAR

on-site maintenance.

MJC PRICE - CALL

GOLDEN IMAGE HAND SCANNER

Quality 400 dpi scanner wrth powerful Touch Up

enhancement software.

MJC PRICE C1 39.95

LIMITED STOCKS!

WORDPROCESSORS

Kind Words 2

WordWorth

E29.95
£84.95

PROTEXT Version 5

A very last command based package now with 1 10 000

word Collins Dictionary, Mail Merge and up to 36 files open

ptus much more • call for details. (1 Meg!

MJC PRICE C99.95

PROTEXT V4.3
PRODATA AMIGA

C 64.95
C55.95

AMIGA EDUCATIONAL

Fun School 2

Fun School 2 under 6 12.95

FunSchool2 6to8 12.95

Fun School 2 over 8 12.95

LCL Sofhrsrs

Primary Maths Course 19.95

Micro Maths GCSE 19.95

Micro English GCSE 19.95

Micro French GCSE 19.95

DESKTOP PUBLISHING

Pagesetter 2 - (Free Clip Art)

47.95

PagestreamV2.1

139.95

Pro Page V2

169.95

The above programs all require at least 1 Meg and

2 drives/Ward recommended.

VIDEO TITLING/PRESENTATION

Big Alternative Scroller

42.95

TV Show - IFF slide show

54.95

TV Text Pro - quality fonts

79.95

Broadcast Titter II

169.95

Broadcast Font Pack (10 Fonts)

84 95

Broadcast Font Enhancer Pack

84 95

ZVP VIDEO STUDIO

Great Video Production package - call for details

(requires 1 Meg + 2 drives)

MJC PRICE C89.95

RENDALE 8802 GENLOCK

Great value Genlock offering both Foreground

and Background modes

MJC PRICE C159.95

8602 MODE SWITCH BOX - C29.95

1 GRAPHICS 1

Pixmate

34.95

Digi Paint 3

44.95

3D Construction Kit

37.95

Digiview 4 Gold

89.95

Deluxe Paint 3

57.95

Disney Animation Studio

74.95

DELUXE PAINT 3 VIDEO TUTORIAL

Nearly 3 hours of how to with DPamt 3
MJC PRICE £17.95

AMOS - The Creator

AMOS VI .2 - The Language £33.95

AMOS COMPILER - now available £21.95

AMOS 3D - now available £24.95

SOUND/MUSIC 1

MasterSound Amiga
Techno Sound Turbo (Stereo)
Harmom Sequencer
Alter Audio ■ Midi Starter Pack

£2995
£29 95
£29.95
£79.95

THE MIDI CONNECTOR

Featuring Midi In. 2 x Midi Out, Midi Thru and

Serial port Thru + 2 cables.

MJC PRICE JUST C14.95

MISCELLANEOUS 1

INFOFILE

29.95

MAXIPLAN PLUS

39.95

SUPERBASE

49.95

SUPERPLAN

49.95

PERSONAL FINANCE MANAGER

22.95

Fun School 3

Fun School 3 under 5 15.95

Fun School 3 5 to 7 15.95

Fun School 3 over 7 15.95

Junior Quiz 6 to 11 14.95

Senior Quiz 14+ 14.95

French Mistress 14.95

German Master 14.95

Learn to Re ad With Prof - by Prisma, is designed to teach a sight
vocabulary ot 63 words and is aimed at 4* years.
The pack includes 5 small reading books and a cassette.

MJC PRICE C19.95

VIDI AMIGA

VIDI COLOUR SOLUTION

Vidi Colour package • including Vtdi Digihser.

Vidichrome and Photon Paint

MJC PRICE C95.00

RGB SPLITTER • tor use with Vidichrome

or Digiview. (includes PSU)

MJC PRICE C59.95

COMPLETE COLOUR SOLUTION

Package includes Vidi Amiga, Vidichrome and Ihe
RGB Splitter for a complete colour digrtismg out-
fit. NOTE: For best colour pictures you require a
video camera or perfect sWl frame VCR
MJC PRICE C1 3995

ber • prices include VAT & delive

Access

continued from page 60

four speed selection buttons (2.400
- 19,200). I first tried selecting
2,400 baud and. while in Ncomm
1.92, pressing AL. Random
characters were sent to me, without
my typing anything. When pressed.
ST flashes the red TEST Indicator.

Automatic dialling gives
"Modem not responding", and
manual dialling does nothing, not
even lighting up CD. I have tried
dialling with just the 2,400 button
pressed in, and pressing it upon the
phone squeaking' at me.

The telephone lead comes from
a splitter (telephone and modem in
the same socket). Into the PSTN
socket. If 1 plug the phone Into the
TELE socket, it goes dead. The
serial cable is home-made, pins 1 -
8, 20 and 22 are connected. Should
pins 20 and 22 be crossed?

I have swapped the modem with
the other in the shop and It is
exactly the same. The back of it has
three sockets - PSTN, TELE and PC.
Should I be using the PC connector?
I have used a friend's 1,200/1,200
modem, and It works perfectly.

How about a modem phone
numbers section?

Ian Ozsvald

Thornton Heath

Surrey

Bad news, I'm afraid. According to
the CIX comms crowd, the Datel
4192AX is a leased-ime synchronous
modem designed for short distance
links. In plain language, it won't work
on a normal telephone ttne. nor can
it be driven by the Amiga's
asynchronous serial port. Return it
and ask for your money back, and
next time please remember that
there's really no such thing as a
bargain if you don't get a manual
with your hardware.

Your serial cable sounds fine,
though - lines 1-8. 20 and 22 should
all be connected straight through.

It is an extremely difficult task to
produce a comprehensive BBS list in
any magazine, since it's a cert that
at least one of the boards will
change or die before the list gets
printed. The best attempt is in our
sister magazine. New Computer
Express. SCR

FAN NOISE RE-VISITED

Mis there an alternative
fan to the A590s which
is quieter? Is there an
extension cable that
can be plugged into the side port so
that the A590 can live with all the
other boxes on the floor?

Paul Mathews

St. Leonards-on-Sea

East Sussex

No and no - howzat! Actually, my
colleague Jolyon Ralph suggests the

best method to silence an A590 is to
remove the fan altogether - although
you will also need to leave the lid off
to provide adequate cooling. It isn't
really possible to extend the
expansion bus more than a few
inches because the data lines tend
to get confused. A better method
would be to buy. say, an A1500 or
Bodega Bay expansion box and put
everything inside. MS

UPGRADING RAM

I currently own an
Amiga A500 with 2Mb
RAM and am thinking of
upgrading, but not really
sure of which way to go - a
Commodore A1500 or the
Checkmate upgrade. The reason for
upgrading Is to make use of an
accelerator board, hard drive and
1Mb Chip RAM in program such as
Vista. Mandel Mountains and DTP.
Protext and Superbase Personal 2
are also used a lot. I was thinking In
terms of a CSA Mega Midget Racer
and a Quantum 52Mb hard drive. So
here's hoping you can answer a few
questions:

1) Do either of the A1500s have an
advantage over the other?

2) To change my machine to 1Mb
Chip RAM. other than changing the
chip, are there any modifications
which need to be done?

3) How many expansion slots do the
two units provide?

4) I have been told that using the
expansion slots on the Commodore
A1500 before the guarantee runs
out will invalidate it. is this true?

5) In the time the A1500 has been
out, have there been any changes In
the specs?

6) If I start off with an accelerator
board without any extra 32-bit
memory, wilt It use any extra RAM I
already have? Will this make the
accelerator slower than when
working with 32-bit memory?

7) Considering the programs I am
likely to be using should I get a
board with a maths co-processor?
Also, would an Economy' Mega
Midget without a Memory
Management Unit (MMU) be OK?

John Hayes
Edmonton

1) The Commodore A1500 is an
Amiga 2000 with two floppy drives. It
has a decent-sized power supply, lots
of slots, three drive bays and 1Mb of
Chip memory. The Checkmate unit
has the obvious advantage that you
won't need to sell your A500.

2) To upgrade your machine to 1Mb
of Chip RAM requires a new Agnus
chip (8372) and a minor soldering
job to the motherboard.

3) The Commodore unit has five
Amiga slots and four IBM style slots
for use with the Bridgeboard. The
Checkmate comes with no slots, but

JARGO

BUSTING

A1500 + Bodega Bay - As well as being a model of Amiga, the A1500 is

also the name of a third party expansion casing, as is the Bodega
Bay. designed to fit on to the Amiga 500 and increase its
expansion capabilities.

A590 - The standard Commodore hard drive for the Amiga. A hard drive
has a much greater capacity than a floppy disk drive, and is
faster. But it does cost rather more.

Accelerator board - A device which either includes a central processor

like the Amiga's, or a more advanced one in the same range, but
operating at a higher speed. An accelerator is useful for
calculation-intensive applications such as 3-D rendering.

Agnus chip - The custom chip in the Amiga dedicated to graphics. The
first three versions - the 8361. and the 8370 and 8371 Fat
Agnus - can access 0.5Mb of Chip RAM. A later version, the
8372a (Fatter Agnus), can access 1Mb.

BBS - Bulletin Board System, contacted via a modem (qv) and telephone
line. The name comes from the American college bulletin board
(the cork and drawing pins type) which is a traditional meeting
and trading place.

Chip RAM - This is the area of the Amiga's memory directly accessible by
the custom graphics and sound chips. Originally a maximum of
512K. newer machines fitted with the Fatter Agnus graphics chip
can access 1Mb. allowing smoother animations and more
screens to be displayed at once. The new Amiga 3000 comes
with an Agnus chip capable of addressing 2Mb of Chip RAM.

Kickstart - The most central part of the Amiga's operating system. These
days it is held in ROM, so that it is immediately present when the
machine is switched on. AlOOOs have Kickstart on a floppy disk,
meaning that on power-up this disk must be inserted before the
Workbench disk. The latest version. Kickstart 2.0. is currently
available only for the A30O0. and offers many improvements.

Modem - A device which connects to the Amiga's serial port and converts
computer signals into a suitable format for transmission along a
phone line. Likewise, it will convert incoming signals back into a
form the computer can recognise. External modems will work with
any computer, although it is possible to buy Amiga-specific cards
to plug into the A1500 and A2000. thus keeping the serial port
free for something else.

they are available as an option. Be
warned, though, that most expansion
board manufacturers will not support
boards fitted into any Amiga 500
expansion like the Checkmate
A1500 or the Bodega Bay.

4) No. I have been assured that the
warranty seal on the back of the
Amiga 1500. 2000 and 3000 is only
for distributors to identify machines
that have been returned by dealers
as dead-on-arrival. The warranty-void
sticker on my 3000 lasted about 20
seconds after unpacking the
machine. You are perfectly entitled to
open up your machine to install
expansion boards with no worries
about invalidating your warranty. If
you started pulling chips out of the
motherboard and soldering things on
it, of course, then that would be a
totally different matter.

5) No. the A1500 hasn't changed in
any way at all since it was first

released. New machines being
manufactured by Commodore at the
moment will apparently have the
Kickstart 2.0 chip installed.
(Although Commodore couldn't
confirm this fact to us at the time of
going to press.)

6) Yes. you really need 32-bit
memory for an accelerator to run at
anywhere near full-speed. It will work
with 16-bit memory, but at less than
half the speed of 32-bit RAM.

7) For Vista and Mandel Mountains a
maths co-processor is a very great
advantage indeed. The memory
management unit is not going to be
essential for the software you are
using at the moment, but future
versions of the Amiga's operating
system will almost certainly utilise an
MMU to provide memory protection
and virtual memory, and will possibly
require one. JR

continued on poge 66

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

continued from page 65

WHAT IS AMOS?

I have had my Amiga for
about a month now. and
am going through much
confusion. I find
reading your magazine very useful,
but one question still remains
unanswered: what is AMOS?

VUoyd

Doncaster

South Yorkshire

AMOS is a programming language.
rather like Basic. Using AMOS, it is
possible to write a series of
instructions which the Amiga will
follow. The instructions must obey
certain rules of syntax - spelling,
word order and so forth. Each
programming language has its own
rules of syntax. The 'meaning' of the
program you write is the overall
process that the Amiga goes through
as a result of following your
instructions.

Programming languages are
necessary because computers
understand a very primitive and
difficult to read language known as
machine code. AMOS acts as a
translator, converting instructions
written in something approaching
English (but by no means as complex
or subtle as English) to the machine
language that the Amiga can follow.

AMOS is one of a variety of
languages known collectively as
Basic. Each version of Basic has its
own idiosyncrasies. AMOS, for
instance, is especially weighted
towards the production of graphics,
music and animation. As a
consequence, it is used a great deal

to write simple games. Don't,
however, get the impression that it
can be used to produce professional-
quality games - it simply doesn't
have the speed. The translation that
AMOS performs slows down the
Amiga, and this translation occurs
every time that your program is
executed - every time that you tell
the Amiga to follow the set of
instructions you have written. CR

INTERFACING AMIGA

My first question
^ .-J concerns the

9 I communication

LhhhhhhhI between computers
using the RS232 port. I would like
to know how I can connect my
Amiga up to a friend's Atari ST. I
know that this is possible and was
wondering if you could help me by
printing a wiring diagram for the
cable. If you were to do this, then
could you please recommend some
software (preferably PD) for use
with such a link.

Would I be able to download a
disk from his ST and use the
programs on it? Would It be
possible to transfer data files and
picture files between computers?

Secondly. I own an Amstrad PC
1512 HD20. with a 20Mb hard card
inside. Since It Is now unused, I was
wondering if there was any chance
that I could remove the hard card
and connect It to my Amiga. I know
that some sort of Interface would be
required, and would be grateful If
you could offer any advice as to how
to connect It to my computer.

Graham Hayes
Leicestershire

JARGO

BUSTING

Array - A type of variable common to most languages, whereby several
variables are grouped under the same name, and each individual
variable (called an array element) is accessed via an integer
index value, usually placed in brackets after the array name.
Arrays are often used in code in which a loop is created by
incrementing a variable. This variable can then be used to access
each element of the array in turn. several new features over
earlier versions.

IFF - Interchange File Format is a means by which data from different
graphics or sound sampling programs are saved in a compatible
way. It allows data to be easily exchanged between programs
and avoids the situation on, say. the PC where dozens of
different graphics packages save data in incompatible formats.

RS232 - A standard serial interface port, used for communicating with

other computers, connecting printers and connecting to modems.

SCSI - Small Computer Systems Interface is a standard used for

connecting hard drives, CD-ROM drives, tape back-up units and
other such devices to computers.

Virus - A small program that can lie hidden in memory or on a disk,
duplicating itself on to any disks inserted in the machine and
generally causing havoc. There are many virus killers available in
the public domain designed to deal with this menace.

To make a null-modem cable (that is
the name of a device to link two
computers) you'll need two 25-way
RS-232 sockets and some cable -
telephone cable is cheap and works
fairly well.

Dig out your soldering iron, and
connect the following pins:

Pin 7 — System Ground Pin 7

Pin 2 (TXD) (RXD) Pin 3

Pin 3 (RXD) (TXD) Pin 2

With both machines switched off.
connect them with the cable, and
gets some terminal software running.
I'd recommend AZComm (Fish Disk
171) as it's small, fast and free. I'm
not sure about the Atari side, but
comms software such as UniTerm or
VanTerm should work, as long as
they supports the Z-Modem protocol.

Set both sides to 9.600 baud full
duplex, 8 data bits, no parity, one
stop bit and no flow control. You
want to use Z-Modem Send from the
Atari, and Z-Modem Receive on the
Amiga, and the files should come
across the line at just under IK per
second. For details of controlling
your Amiga from the ST. check out
this month's AmigaDOS column,
which details how to do just that.
You'll find it on page 105.

You won't be able to run any of
the Atari programs without an
emulator, but there are various
graphics converters for both
machines which allow pictures to be
exchanged.

Connecting a PC hard drive to
the Amiga is not easy. There is no
hope if it's one of the really old SASI
drives used in some 1512s. and
even if it's a ST-506 drive you may
have extreme difficulty connecting to
an A500. Almathera Systems
(« 081-683 6418) may be able to
help you out. SCR

CROSSWORD PUZZLE

I have recently bought
AMOS and wondered if
you could help me with
a few problems I have

been having with It. My problems

are the following:

1) I can't get AMOS to list my
programs. When I type LLIST as it
says In the manual, the reply is
•Illegal direct mode". How can I
send my programs to the printer?

2) I have written a program to
design crossword puzzles. They are
created using the box and paint
commands. How can I save the final
crossword to disk?

3) Still with the same program, how
can I print them?

Gareth Downes-Powell

Broadstairs

Kent

1) For some reason the LLIST
command doesn't work. You can get

around this by highlighting your
program as a block and printing it. To
do this, go to the top of the program
and press the right mouse button.
Now, with the mouse button still
pressed, move to the end of the
program. It should all be highlighted.

Go to the top of the screen and
click with the right mouse button on
the Blocks menu gadget. Then click
on the Block Print gadget, and all of
the highlighted text will be printed.
2) It's difficult to give you accurate
advice about saving the crossword,
since you haven't told me how your
program stores the crossword puzzle
internally. I'm assuming that you
have the words stored in two arrays.
A$() and D$(). representing words
across and down. The size of these
arrays will be governed by the
number of possible words in your
crossword. This can be represented
by a variable, WORDS, which is
initialised at the beginning of the
program to, say, 20.

If there is a word at three across.
then you would place that word in
A$(3). A word at twelve down would
be placed in D$(12). And so on. Any
elements of the array that don't have
words corresponding to them are left
empty. As well as storing the words,
you must also store the positions
that they appear in on the crossword.
You can use two numeric arrays for
this, such as A(WORDS) and
D(WORDS).

Saving the crossword to disk
becomes a simple matter of saving
these four arrays as a file. Some
AMOS code to do it looks like this:

Open Out 1, "filename"

For 1-1 TO WORDS

Print #1,AS(I),A(I)
Next I
For 1-1 To WORDS

Print #1,D$(I)
Next I
For 1-1 To WORDS

Print ll,A(X)

Print *1,D(I)
Close 1

Obviously you must think of a
filename to use when accessing your
crossword. You will also have to
include a disk name in the quoted
part of the Open command if you
want to save to a disk other than the
one currently in the drive. Bear in
mind that this process of saving the
file will erase a previously saved file
of the same name.

To recall a previously stored
crossword puzzle is just as simple:

Open In 1, "filename
For 1-1 To WORDS

Input ffl,A$(I)
Next I
For 1-1 To WORDS

Input #1,0$ < I)
Next I

U AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

M*M.

For I-lTo W3RDS
Input #1,A(I)
Input HrD(Z)

Next I

Close 1

With ]ust this information it is a
simple matter to re-construct a
crossword grid. You start off
assuming that all the squares in the
grid are blacked out. Then, working
your way through each of the across
and down string arrays, you can find
which squares should be left open,
and draw each of these in white.
Here's a section of AMOS code to do
just that:

Cle 2

Ink

Polygon 0,0 To X*16,0 To J

X*16,Y*8 To 0,Y*8 To 0,0

ink 2

Pen : Paper 2

For 1-1 To WORDS

If A$(I)<>""
Polygon A(I) *16,D(I) *8 To J
A{I)*16+Len(A$(I))*16,D(I)*8J
To A(I)*16*Len(A$(I))-16, J
D(I)*8+8 To A(I)*16,D(I)*8+8J
To A(I)*16,D(I)*8

End If

If D$(I)<>""
Polygon A(I)*16,D(I)*8 To J
A(I)*16,D(I)*8+Len(D$(I))*8 J
To A(I)*16+16,D(I)*8+Len( J
D$(I))*8 To A(I)*16+16,D(I) J
*8 To A(I)*16,D(I)*8

End If

If(A$(I><>"") or <D$(I)<>"")
Locate X Text(A(I)*16),Y J
Text(DU)*8)

Print
Right$(Str$(I),Len(Str$(I>)--J

1);

End If
Next I

The arrays A() and D() contain the
positions within the crossword grid
where the words appear, numbering
the top left column with coordinates
(0.0). The length of space necessary
either across or down to
accommodate the words is
determined by using the string
function 'Len()' to get the length of
the words. Since the characters are
eight pixels wide by eight pixels high,
each of the squares must be at least
eight by eight. In this example I've
made the squares 16 pixels wide, so
that numbers larger than nine can be
printed in them.

Notice when printing the number
corresponding to the words that it is
necessary to convert the number to a
string and to drop the first character
in the string. This is because AMOS
puts a space at the beginning of
positive integers when it prints them.

You may well want to save a set
of clues along with the actual words
and their coordinates. In this case,
you simply need two more string

arrays to hold the across and down
clues. They can be saved and loaded
in exactly the same way as the rest
of the information, as outlined in the
code fragments above.
3) Probably the easiest way to get a
printout of your finished crossword is
to display it on the screen, save the
screen as an IFF file, load it into a
program such as Deluxe Paint and
print it from there.

After your code which displays
the crossword, put the line:

Save Iff "filename"

You can then load the screen into
DPaint and print it out. CR

REPLAY WONT PLAY

K Date Is Action Replay
cartridge refuses to
work properly with the
A5000 accelerator card
located In my Amiga 500. By
removing the A5000 the cartridge
works fine. The A5000 has given me
no other problems In the seven
months I have used It.

My system has 4Mb of RAM
(located on the accelerator card),
another 0.5Mb underneath the
trapdoor, an external disk-drive and
1Mb of Chip RAM.

Dean Simmontte
Doncaster

Datel's cartridge isn't very well
known for it's compatibility; indeed,
I have been waiting since February
for Datel to inform me when they
have a cartridge that actually works
properly with other addons. The
current Action Replay II cartridge will
not work with most hard drives and it
will not work with more than 2Mb of
Fast memory. It doesn't work with
accelerators either, as you've found
out. Hopefully Date! will give their
German programmers a kick and tell
them to do the job properly. JR

DOUBLE VISION

At present I have an
| | A 2 000 with a 1084 S
monitor which is
connected to both the
A2000 (RGB connector) and a video
deck (CVBS connector), allowing
me to happily switch between the
two. I also have an AT Bridgeboard
and a VGA card and would like a
monitor which will give me VGA on
the PC side and flicker-free
resolution on the Amiga side, while
still being able to work with the
video deck.

In the Bridgeboard manual rt
says that you must have two
monitors If you want VGA on the PC
side, but I don't see why this can't
be overcome. Could you recommend
a monitor for my requirements?

Paul Gunning
Eastbourne

The VGA and flicker-free input is
relatively easy. You'll need a multi-
sync monitor, a switcher box and the
correct cabling for all your
connections. Connect both the VGA
output and the flicker-fixer output to
the switch box. Connect the output
from the switch box to the monitor.
Use the switch to go from VGA to
flicker-free and back.

I'm not sure if there are any
multi-sync monitors which will also
take composite video. If you can find
one, then your problem is solved. If
not you'll have to code the video
signal into RGB and then add it to
your switch box for output to the
multi-sync as RGB. So. yes, the
problem could be overcome, but
since you have a 1084 anyway, why
not use it for the video signal?
Wouldn't that make life simpler? GW

PHONE QUERIES

While reading How to
Get Started with
Modems by Jim Kimble,
I read about a system
operated by the US phone
companies called TELENET'; by
subscribing to the system you can
phone anywhere In the nation for a
standard hourly rate. It also talked
of a system called PC Pursuit,
whereby you can phone as many
times as you want to any major BBS
for $25 a month (off-peak). Are
there any systems like this operated
In Britain, and If not why not? Surely
it would make an Interesting hobby
a lot more affordable and fun,
especially In the light of BT's future
price rises. What Is PSS - Is this
BT's equivalent?

I purchased a copy of NComm.
which I copied on to a blank disk.
This version has a virus checker on
the front and when loading the copy
It warned me that a virus was
present. When I put it into Kill Virus
mode It claims It's dead but when
I re-boot I am told that a virus Is
still present. If I don't reset after
killing the virus its all OK. Is the
vims still present? Am I transferring
it to ail the BBSs I phone?

Michael Tipping
Snitterfield

Warwickshire

PSS (Packet Switched Stream) is a
system allowing long-distance data
connections to be charged at local
rates. It requires the caller to have a
Dialcom PSS account (£60
registration plus £15 a quarter), and
the target system needs to have a
PSS address. It's expensive, not
widely used, and high speed support
is not always available locally.

PC Pursuit is a way of saving the
user money. Since BT is very nearly a
monopoly in this country, it would not
be in its interests to offer such a
system. Your best bet is to get a

Mercury account, since long distance
calls are much cheaper with it (as
long as you spend more than about
£100 per quarter on phone calls).
It sounds like you've got a link
virus on some of the files on your
boot disk. Get a recent virus killer
and let it scan through every file
you've got. Anything that you have
run and then uploaded may carry this
virus, so it's in everyone's interest
that you get rid of it. SCR

THE SCSI CONNECTION

r ^h I am presently

J considering buying a
hard disk for my A500.
A lot of drives now offer
SCSI Interfaces. Does this mean
I can connect SCSI devices -
CD-ROMs and so on - to It? What
about other SCSI hard drives? If I
buy an A590 will I be able to
connect a SCSI drive to It at a later
date? If so, will I need a controller
for the new drive or would the
existing A590 cope with It?

Chris Thomley

Beaworthy

North Devon

Most hard drives for the Amiga 500
have a SCSI port on the back. If a
drive has a SCSI port and the
interface supports the SCSI-Direct
protocol (the A590 does), then you
can get almost any SCSI device
(CD-ROM, tape streamers, magneto-
optical drives and so on) working
with it. They will need special driver
software to control them, though.
Other SCSI hard disks can be added
at a later date without any problem;
the SCSI controller is embedded on
the drive itself, so ail you need is a
drive, a power supply and case, and
the relevant cable. JR

IMAGINATIVE DIFFERENCE

^ I was pleased to see
the review of Imagine
Ir^ I In Amiga Shopper Issue
" m 4. However, there
seem to be differences between my
copy (vl.O) and the review copy. I
read about Items such as the rotate
effect, camouflage and other Items
which don't exist In my copy. Have I
got an earlier version?

I also have a problem getting
transparency effects to work. How
about a tutorial section or tips for
Imagine users?

Is there anyone who can provide
me with suitable scenes (raytrace
clip-art) for rendering In Imagine and
if so, who?

A Jones

Wrexham

Clwyd

Yes, you're right. I was reviewing
Imagine 1.1 (and forgot to say so).

coafmved on page 69

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

(OfitMwed from pog* 67

Upgrading is easy - send your
original disk and £3.50 to Alternative
Image. 6 Lothair Road, Leicester LE2
7QB and you will get an upgrade to
version 1.1. It may be worth waiting
a few more weeks, though, as vl.2
is due and is obviously going to be
even better.

To get a glass-like effect, try the
following settings:

Colour 255/255/255

Reflect 0/0/0 (more If you wish)

Filter 255/255/255

Index of Refraction 1.67 (for

glass)

Try using these settings to make a
lens in front of a chequered panel.
Remember to keep the reflection
values quite low. though, as
otherwise all you'll see is a reflection
of the world on the glass object.
Lastly. I am not aware of any
object libraries specifically for
Imagine, although there are disks of
Sculpt Animate objects (for instance,
the series by Antic) which can be
converted for use in Imagine by using
the Turbo Silver 3 converter with
Syndesis' Interchange object
conversion software. GW

SAFE PA RKING

T A "^When I play a game on
I** my A500, must I

afterwards boot up with
Workbench to park the
heads of the A590, or will they not
have moved from the parking area
as the computer was booted up
from a floppy In the first place?

Gordon J A Smith

Irvine

Ayrshire

The simple answer, I'm afraid, is yes
you should park you drive's heads -
although things tends to get a bit
more complicated if you are still
using Kickstart 1.2 or a special
(third-party) hard drive. If you have
1.2 Kickstart, the drive stays parked
until you reboot the startup floppy.
Under 1.3 however, the Kickstart
ROMs auto-mount the drive and
unpark the heads as soon as the
machine is switched on. If your drive
mechanism has been upgraded to.
say. an auto-parking Quantum this
problem does not occur.

A quick solution is to ensure that
the 'park* icon is in the main
directory of a boot disk and create a
Startup-sequence to specifically park
the heads.

For a 1.2 Kickstart you would
need to add the following before and
after the line BINDDRIVERS on the
startup disk:

copy C:ASK to RAM:

BindDrivers ; the J

existing BindDrivers ccnmand

Park

RAM: ASK "Heads now parked.

Switch off now.

For a 1.3 Kickstart machine you
should use the following instead;
BindDrivers is not required, so place
this just after SetPatch.

SetPatch >NILi

copy C:ASK to RAM:

Park

RAM: ASK "Heads now parked. J

Switch off now."

In either case, you can continue the
Startup-sequence by pressing
[Return] at the prompt. MS

DESIGN DILEMMA

1 1 have been Interested
In buying a CAD
j package for my Amiga.
I have not seen any CAD
packages actually working on the
Amiga, nor have I managed to buy
any demos, so I cannot make an
informed decision on which one to
buy. My decision will be Influenced
by the following factors and
preferences:

1) My existing Amiga set up is an
Amiga A500 with 1Mb of memory
and a second floppy disk drive.

2) If possible. I would like to draw
circles, arcs, diagonals and so on
without Jagged edges and produce
printouts on my Epson LX80 that
are good enough for photocopies
and OHPs.

3) The software must be able to
produce windows, pull-down menus
and Its own icons for ease of use as
I cannot yet use the Shell system.

4) Accurate metric scaling is
important.

5) I would like to Import files into
Kindwords.

Tony Gorman

Moulton

Northampton

At the risk of sounding repetitive. I'd
recommend XCAD Designer
(published by Applied Vector
Technology. « 081-573 9694). It
doesn't produce icons for its files,
but it is a powerful 2D package that
you won't outgrow quickly, if ever.

X-CAD will save IFF bitmaps
which can be loaded into Kindwords
but the print quality will be poor,
since the screen resolution is too
low for any great detail. The normal
dot-matrix output from XCad
Designer is excellent, though. SCR

WHO IS GARY?

Ml recently upgraded my
A500 to 1Mb. However,
I soon realised that I
really need even more
memory. I saw an advertisement for
the Megaboard from Evesham
Micros which fits In between the

JARGO

BUSTING

CAD

Park-

ROM

Computer Aided Design applications provide designers with the
graphical facilities to design buildings, circuit boards and so on.

The process of moving the read/write head of a hard drive away
from the disk, so that no damage can be incurred to the disk's
surface while it is not in use.

Read Only Memory is used to store essential programs such as
Kickstart and many of the library routines. These do not have to
be re-loaded each time the Amiga is switched on because ROM
retains its contents without power. No new information can be
written to ROM. hence the name Read Only.

512K upgrade and the Amiga to
give a total of 2Mb. The
documentation states that
installation requires connection to
the Gary chip.

Exactly what is the Gary chip,
what does it do, why must the
Megaboard be connected to It and
how does the Megaboard connect
to it? Is the Megaboard a viable
investment, or should I look
elsewhere for another expansion?

Daniel Simmonds
Colchester

The Gary chip in the Amiga 500
controls the memory and the memory
expansion. When the Amiga 500 was
designed it was thought that 1Mb of
memory would be enough for most
people (remember that the Amiga
1000 was sotd in the US with 256K
initially!). The expansion slot was
therefore only designed to accept
512K of extra memory. Some
companies have found that by
connecting a few extra wires between
their board and the Gary chip they
can get a lot more memory in the
slot, particularly as modern
expansions use less chips and are
therefore smaller. To fit the Gary
extender you will have to open up
your Amiga 500 (and this will
invalidate your guarantee), remove
the metal shielding and carefully
remove the Gary chip - which can be
done with two flat-bladed
screwdrivers. You insert the chip into
the connector, and plug that
connector back into the
motherboard. It's a very simple job; if
you can wire a plug you can put the
Gary adaptor in. JR

PC TO AMIGA GRAPHICS

I have access to a hlgh-
:' Iquallty scanner, and
would like to use ft to
I produce copies of
photographs for my Amiga at home.
The only snag Is that the scanner Is
attached to an IBM machine. I can
save images to a 3.5-Inch disk and
read them Into the Amiga (using
CrossDOS) without problems.
However, although the file is then

available on an AmlgaDOS disk
I cannot get Amiga graphics or DTP
programs to recognise them as
graphics files.

I am quite prepared to write a
conversion program, but I don't
know the format of either the TIFF
file produced by the IBM or the
Amiga files. Presumably there are
some sort of headers which give
details of the size of the Image,
number of bltplanes and so on?

John Cook

Portsmouth

Hants

The problem you've got is easy to
explain but not quite so easy to
solve.You have moved across TIFF
graphic files. All Amiga graphics
software uses a picture file format
which forms part of the IFF standard
so Amiga graphics and art programs
are not going to be able to recognize
or do anything with your pictures until
you've converted them into IFF form.

IFF (Interchange File Format) is a
standard devised by Electronic Arts
and adopted by Commodore and a
complete description of the IFF
standard could fill this magazine
from cover to cover for the next year!
I can. however, give you a rough idea
of the layout expected, and point you
in the right direction as far as the
documentation goes.

The following details concentrate
exclusively on the part of the IFF
standard relating to the storage of
two-dimensional raster graphics
images - that is. pictures.

Such raster images are stored
using a form known as an interleaved
bitmap. The picture data itself is
usually compressed using a
technique called ByteRunl
compression and this compressed
data, together with other IFF data
items, constitutes the picture file as
it would be stored on disk. The
various file sections are known, in
IFF speak, as 'chunks'. Programs
that read IFF data look for and use
chunks that they recognise and
ignore those chunks that they cannot
or do not wish to handle.

CMtiimd m pogc 70

Aft AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

FERGUSON SMITH

14DowansideRoad Glasgow G12 9DA

WORLD BEATING PRICE AND PERFORMANCE
GOLEM MASTERPIECE TURBO CARD A500/2000 1

16MHz 68030.68882 2Mb 32 Bit Fast RAM (exp. 16Mb)
External for A500. Slot tor A2000

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GOLEM A500 HARD DRIVES SCSI II

With 4Mb RAM Interface Ktckstart 2.0 Option ♦ Password

The Golem controller is rated as the fastest in the world with a transfer rate of up to
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Quantum 52Mb with above controller £549.95

Quantum 105Mb with above controller £699 95

SCSI M/RAM/Ktck Combi Controller £249.95

A2000 F1LECARDS SCSI III

Quantum 52Mb (with GOLEM controller) £429.95

Quantum 105Mb ( ' " " } £529.95

Quantum 210Mb & 425Mb P.O.A.

|A500 RAM EXPANSION!

SUPRA A500RX 8Mb Board ind. 2Mb £179.95

SUPRA A50QRX 8Mb Board incl. 8Mb £475.95

A2000 RAM EXPANSION"]

NEW MEGA MIX 8Mb Board

With 2Mb installed £147.95

With 8Mb installed £339.95

With 5 i 4Mb — P.OA

ACCELERATORS/EMULATORS

A2630 TURBO CARD 68030^68882 25 MHz

Original Commodore including 2MB <exp to 4MB) 32 Bit RAM £880

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Pnces subject to change without notce E&OE

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cm tinwd from page 68

AH Iff chunhs 5lart with a four-
Character identifier followed by a

four-byte (signed 32-bit) count giving

the size of the chunk's data (termed
the *Ghunh3i£e'>. Following this is the
data itself and, if the chunksize is an
odd number, a zero pad byte at the
end of the data.

As a C structure definition a
chunk can be described like this:

typedef struct {

LONG chunk ID;

LONG chunksize;

UBYTE chunkdataC /* size J
given by chunksize */ J ;
} Chunk;

A normal IFF picture file will start with
the four letters FORM. This is a
keyword that says that the datafile
'chunk', i.e. the file itself, describes
a self contained IFF data section. For
picture files the FORM type will be
ILBM (the chunk identifier for an

interleaved bitmap image with colour
map), so the first twelve bytes of
such a file would announce the fact
that the file was an IFF file which
contained a data section, would give
the overall size of the chunk, and
would identify the data as being
ILBM type.

An ILBM chunk will have various
'property' chunks embedded within
it. One of these property chunks is
called the bitmap header. It is an IFF
'required property' - it must be
present. The bitmap header (chunk
identifier BMHD) describes the
dimensions and the encoding of the
image data to follow later. If we
consider the IFF bitmap header
chunk as a C structure you will be
able to see what information those
20 bytes of header data contain:

•

struct {

UWORD width, height; /* J

width and height of raster -J

in pixels */

WDRD xpos,ypos; /* pixel J

position for this image */
UBYTE planes; /* number J
of bit planes in image */
UBYTE masking; /*indicates—
masking technique in use */
UBYTE compression; /* -J
indicates the compression J
technique •/

UBYTE padbyte; /* unused J
at present - should be zero*/
UWORD t r an spa rentColour ;
/•transparent colour number*/
UBYTE xAspect , yAspect ; /* J
pixel width: height ratio */
WORD pageWidth, J
pageHeight; /* source page J
size in pixels */
> BitMapHeader;

The first word gives the image width,
the second gives its height. If, for
example, the values were 0140 hex
(320 decimal) and 00C8 hex (200
decimal) this would indicate a 320 by
200 pixel image. The next two words
specify the x/y posttion of the image
on the screen. Following this is an 8-
bit unsigned value which indicates
how many bitplanes the image
contains.

The 'masking' value identifies
one of four types of mask (this is an
optional bitplane that tells us
whether or not to move pixel data to
a destination) being used. There are
currently four possibilities:

indicates no mask.

1 indicates that a mask is
interleaved with the bit plane data.

2 indicates that parts of the
image are to be regarded as
transparent.

3 indicates a MacPaint 'lasso -
type mask.

The unsigned byte which follows the
mask byte identifies the type of
algorithm which has been used to
compress the data. If the value is
zero, the data is not compressed, if
the value is 1 it indicates that a
standard Electronic Arts compression

JARGO

BUSTING

Bitplane - A bitplane is an area of memory where every binary bit

corresponds to a pixel on the screen. One bitplane represents a
monochrome image, several can be overlaid to represent a colour
or greyscale image.

IFF

TIFF-

IFF is short for Interchance File Format, and is an attempt to
make sure that data saved out by one program can be read by
another. Because the data is stored on disk in a specified way.
you have a good chance of being able to read IFF sounds and
images into a program other than the one in which they were
originally created.

Tagged Image File Format, another standard for storing images,
which was specified by Aldus. Although theoretically as standard
as IFF. in practice there are many small variations in the TIFF
standard, so programs cannot always reliably read TIFFs created
by something else.

algorithm has been used.

The transparentColour* word
specifies which bit pattern is to be
considered as transparent and is
only relevant if the mask flag is set
to a value greater than one. Bytes 15
and 16 are the x/y aspect ratio and
are available to help programs
account for the different physical
pixel width/height characteristics of
not only the various Amiga screen
types but different machine types as
well. The last two fields give the pixel
size of the original source page.

Other property chunks are often
found embedded in a FORM ILBM.
Here are some of the more important
ones that you might encounter:

CMAP identifies colour map data.

GRAB identifies a handle or

'hotspot' point within an
image.

DEST describes how to merge
bitplane data into an
existing picture that has
more bitplanes available
than the image data in
question.

SPRT defines a sprite image.

CAMG an Amiga-specific chunk
related to special display
modes including Hold and
Modify mode.

CRNG/CCRT These chunk types
provides colour
cycling' information.

Using the pixel data which is stored
in an IFF BODY chunk is rather
difficult because the bitplane data is
'interleaved* and usually
compressed. The picture data is
stored as a series of data items
representing the video scanlines'
with each scanline consisting of the
data from each of the bitplanes.
possibly followed by an additional
'pseudo-plane' used to defining the
masking.

As you can imagine. IFF
programming is not an easy subject
to learn about. The place to look for
detailed info is in the back of the
Addison Wesley Includes and
Autodocs Rom Kernel Manual. There
is, incidentally, a lot of IFF support
code floating around in the public
domain.

As far as the TIFF format is
concerned I'm sure if you contact
Aldus, the standard's designers, on
031-220 4747 they'll be only too
happy to help you get a copy

I would have thought that
someone somewhere must have
written a public domain TIFF to IFF
picture converter already - so
perhaps the best idea is to start
contactfng PD libraries. PAO

MEDIA MIX-UP

I read recently about
how to get back files on
a dick after something
else has been saved
over them. It worked a treat, but my
plea Is this: Is It possible to get
erased programmes back from a
VHS tape In a similar way?

Clayton Vaughn

I'm afraid that it can't be done. The
reason for this is relatively simple,
although both disks and video tape
work by magnetism: information is
stored by magnetising areas of the
media in a certain orientation. The
data can then be retrieved by reading
the magnetic field which is given off
from the media.

Writing new information over old
means that the previous magnetic
information on the disk or tape is
lost forever. The reason that
information from disks can be
retrieved after it has been erased
lies in the way that information is
stored on them.

Unlike a tape, information is
stored anywhere on a disk that there
is space. In fact, different parts of
the same program may physically be
on entirely separate parts of the
disk. When a program is erased from
a disk, all that happens is that the
header information - which describes
the size and location of the rest of
the file - is removed from the disk.
Thus, there is no record on the disk
that the file ever existed, and the
space which it took up is essentially
freed up.

Subsequent files saved on the
disk are saved on unused portions of
the disk. This includes the space
previously taken up by the deleted
file, but a disk is so big that the
chances are this space will be
untouched and the information will
remain intact for some considerable
time. Recovering an erased file
becomes a matter of reconstructing
the header information and retrieving
the rest of the information from its
various locations about the disk.
Although by no means a simple task,
there are a number of utilities around
which can do this job for you. with
varying degrees of success. The
sooner a recovery is attempted after
a file has been erased, the better
the chances are. (If you ever want to
do this, you can maximise your
chances of success by ensuring that
you don't save any other files on to
the disk before you try to perform the
recovery.)

A video tape, on the other hand,
works in a sequential manner:
rewinding a tape to the start and
beginning to record means that the
new programme will be recorded
directly over the old one - erasing it
totally, and with no hope of recovery.
Sorry. CR

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

aving taken your brand
new Amiga out of its box
and plugged it in. you may
well be more than a little
bewildered at what confronts you.
Although the machine is on the
whole easy to use, there are a host
of concepts to learn before you can
make full use of it. Here we aim to
outline some of these fundamentals
to save you time and effort in coming
to grips with your new machine; but
always remember that the best way
to learn about the Amiga is to
experiment.

WHAT IS A COMPUTER?

A computer is a machine which will
follow a set of instructions. It cannot
think, Out merely does what it is told.
The instructions which it follows can
come from a number of sources:
instructions held internally, from the
makers of the computer; instructions
from a third-party program which is
loaded in from a floppy disk;
instructions from you, the user, typed
in at the keyboard. The results,
known collectively as 'output', are
sent either to the screen, to the
printer (if you have one) or to the
disk in the floppy disk drive.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Well, without getting carried away...
at the heart of the machine is
something called the Central
Processing Unit (CPU). This is the bit
which interprets the instructions sent
to it (in a very simple language called
'machine code') and does what they
tell it to. The instructions are held in
the computer's memory.

MEMORY

The classic analogy is that of
comparing memory to matchboxes.
Imagine an incredibly long row of
matchboxes, each numbered and
each with something inside it. The
contents of a memory location can
be found or changed by referring to
the number of the relevant
matchbox, opening it and taking a
look (or putting something else in). In
practice, all that these matchboxes
contain is numbers, but these
numbers can be understood by the
computer as words, pictures or
sound (or indeed they can be kept as
numbers). There are two main types
of memory: RAM and ROM. RAM
(standing for Random Access
Memory) can be altered at any time
by the computer. Once the power is
switched off. the contents of RAM
are 'forgotten'. ROM (Read Only
Memory), on the other hand, is never
changed, even when the power is

On the next three pages, technical
editor Cliff Ramshaw answers a
number of question frequently
asked by those new to the Amiga

switched off. It contains the basics
of the operating system - the set of
instructions which determine the
overall behaviour of the machine at
all times.

Memory is measured in units
known as bytes. In every byte a
number between and 255 can be
held. To hold bigger numbers, or
more complex items of information,
bytes are joined together into larger
units. More conveniently, memory is
spoken of in terms of kilobytes (K) or
Megabytes (Mb). A kilobyte is 1,024
bytes; a megabyte is 1.024 kilobytes
or 1.048,576 bytes. The reason that
they are not nice round 1,000s and
1.000.000 lies in the organisation of
bytes according to the rules of binary
arithmetic, but that's not important
right now...

FAT AGNUS

Possibly the most common question
we get asked here at Amiga Shopper
is about the Fat Agnus chip. Agnus is
one of several custom chips inside
the Amiga dedicated to producing
graphics and sound. Whereas the
Amiga's central processor can
access all of the memory in the
machine, the Agnus chip is limited to
a much smaller portion, known as
Chip RAM (since it can be accessed
by the custom chips).

It is here that graphics
information

accesses the Chip RAM. it prevents
the Amiga's central processor from
doing so at the same time. Because
much of what a processor does
involves accessing memory, this has
a tendency to slow the processor
down. Memory which is not Chip
RAM. on the other hand, can be
accessed by the processor whenever
it likes, without a speed penalty. And
that's why it's called Fast RAM.

Now. the more Chip RAM. the
better, since it means that more
complex graphics can be on screen
at once, bigger and smoother
animations can be performed and
more impressive sound samples
used. The earty Agnus chips could
access 512K of Chip RAM, or half of
a megabyte (the amount of memory
that comes with an Amiga 500). This
chip is numbered 8361, and was
present on AlOOOs and early A2000
machines.

After that came the Fat Agnus,
with a shape more like that of a
square and a couple of extra
features. This is the one in the
majority of Amigas. Its part number
is 8371 (or 8370 for the American
version). Like its predecessor, it can
access 0.5Mb of Chip RAM.

In the last year or so. Amigas
have been released with an even
newer Agnus chip. This is known as
the Fatter Agnus, and it can

The Workbench menu; and
someone's about to try duplicating a
disk.

recognise 1Mb of Chip RAM. It has
part number 8372a. An even newer
version exists, accessing 2Mb of
Chip RAM. but this is only available
for the new Amiga 3000.

Hope that's cleared things up.

WHAT ABOUT DISKS?

Disks can be thought of as
removable memory. The difference is
that the processor cannot directly
access anything held on a disk.
Before it can get its hands on it, the
contents of the disk must be
'loaded' into the computer's RAM.

Information is stored on a disk In
the form of files. A file is simply a
grouping of related infomation with a
name. The information is referenced
by using the file name.

INFORMATION

Two types of information may be held
in memory and on disks. The first
type is the information which makes
up a program. A program is a
collection of instructions for the
computer to follow. As well as the
operating system, which is nearly
always present, the Amiga may have
several programs 'running' inside its

The Workbench window,
displayed by clicking on the
Workbench disk Icon

The system drawer, from
which the System window
appears

must be stored.
Anything you see
on the screen
has an

equivalent form
inside the
Amiga's

memory. In Chip
RAM, and it is
Agnus (amongst
others) that
does the job of
converting this
information into
the form of a
picture.

The rest of
the Amiga's
RAM (as
opposed to
ROM) is termed
Fast RAM.
Whenever Agnus This Illustration shows the basic components of the Amiga screen.

the memory

showing
how much
space Is
left on the

disk

The window title bar; using
this the window can be
moved around the screen

A collection
of disk Icons

A tool icon

The system
window

The re-eke gadget, with
which the window can be
shrunk or enlarged

The front/back
gadgets, which
determine
whether the
window
appears In
front of or
behind Its
neighbours

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

coatHMfdfroffl pogt 71

memory at any ono timo. Thoso can

instruct it do such things as draw
pictures or operate a spreadsheet.
The second type of information is

known as 'data'. This is also held in

RAM, but instead of providing
instructions for the CPU. it provides
information on which the programs
may operate. For instance, a
program which adds two numbers
together needs some data before it
can be of any use. These two
numbers are the program's input
data. The result of the addition is the
output data. Another example is
given by the Deluxe Paint package.
This is a program. Any key presses
or mouse movements you make are
input data for the program; the
picture that is gradually drawn is the
output data. Of course, this picture
may be saved on to a disk at any
time, and loaded back at a future
date. In such a case, the picture has

now become input data for the

program. As you can see. the
distinction between input and output
data can become somewhat blurred.

WIMP

In days of yore, people used to
control computers exclusively by
keyboards. Because of the relatively
new WIMP (windows, icons, menus,
pointer) system, many tasks can be
greatly speeded up and performed in
a more intuitive manner (hence the
name of the part of the Amiga's
operating system that deals with
this: Intuition).

All disks, programs and related
collections of data are displayed on
the screen as small pictures, known
as icons. To prevent things getting

window's borders that represent
these functions. Windows may be
nested hierarchically inside each
other by means of drawer icons.
Whenever a drawer icon is opened, a
new window is drawn with its own
icons within it.

Icons are accessed with the
screen pointer, which is moved
across the screen by moving the
mouse across the desk. Once the
pointer is above an icon, that icon
can be accessed by pressing the left
mouse button twice in quick
succession (a process termed
double-clicking'). The effects of this
will vary depending on the icon in
question: in the case of a disk or
drawer icon, a window will be
opened; in the case of a program (or
'tool'), the program will be loaded
from disk into RAM and run (in other
words, the Amiga will start to follow
the instructions contained in the
program); clicking on a data icon (or
'project') wilt result in the data's
corresponding program or tool being
loaded from disk along with the data
on which it will begin to operate. The
pointer is also used to control a
window's gadgets, but in this case
the left mouse button need only be
pressed once.

A special type of icon that you
should be aware of is the 'trashcan'
icon. Other icons may be moved
inside here by placing the pointer
above them, pressing and keeping
pressed the left-hand mouse button,
and moving the pointer and icon until
they are above the trashcan.
Releasing the mouse button results
in the icon being dumped in the
trashcan. The contents of the
trashcan can be revealed by clicking

SystfiH Request

Ok to Initialize yolune

Screenshots

(all data will be erased) ?

Continue

Cancel

A system requester, giving a chance to reconsider.

too cluttered, the screen is divided
into small sections called windows.
in which the icons relevant to that
window are displayed. Each window
may be open or closed (in which
case it reverts to either a disk or a
drawer icon), moved around relative
to the screen, moved in front of or
behind other windows on the screen,
and resized to display more or less
information. All of this may be done
by means of gadgets - small
graphical symbols around each

on it in the same way as you would
click on a drawer icon. The difference
is that the trashcan may be emptied,
in which case all of its contents are
gone for good. Handle with care.

Menus are another innovation of
the WIMP system. Menus are a list
of options displayed in a text box.
selected by means of the pointer. In
this way. more complex operations
can be performed with the mouse
and without recourse to the
keyboard. When first switched on

The Shell provides a command-line Interface to the
Amiga, similar to that used on IBM PC-compatibles.

and with Workbench loaded in RAM
(Workbench is the part of the
Amiga's operating system which is
not held permanently in ROM), a
basic set of menus are available
which enable you to do such useful
things as copy disks and so forth.
Most programs have their own
custom set of menus, relating to the
particular things that the program is
used for.

Menus are displayed at the top
of the screen. Pressing the right-
hand mouse button (and keeping it
pressed) reveals the title of each
available menu in the white bar at
the top. Moving the pointer up to one
of these titles (with the mouse
button still pressed) will cause the
Amiga to display the list of options in
a box beneath the title. As the
pointer is moved down this box, each
of the options will be highlighted in
turn. Releasing the right-hand mouse
button with one of the options
highlighted will result in that option
being executed.

Although not mentioned in the
WIMP acronym, another aspect of
the system is the "requester'. A
requester is a box that appears on
the screen during an operation -
usually a dangerous one such as
erasing a disk - displaying a small
amount of text and asking the user
for what is normally a yes or no reply.
In the case of erasing a disk, the text
will say 'Ok to initialise volume
[name of disk] (all data will be
erased)?'. Two gadgets are
displayed, one with 'Continue'
written in it. the other displaying
Cancel'. The option you want is
selected by moving the pointer over
the relevant box and pressing once
on the left-hand mouse button.

MULTI-TASKING

One of the Amiga's special features
that you've no doubt heard about is
multi-tasking. The Amiga is unique
amongst home computers in having
this feature; in fact it's not until you
begin to look at computers very
much more expensive than the
Amiga that you will normally find
such a thing.

But what is it? Basically, multi-
tasking is the ability to run more than

one program at the
same time. This
may not seem like
a big deal: after all,
there is only one of
you controlling the
thing, and you
can't control more
than one program
at a time. There
are advantages to
multi-tasking,
though.

At its simplest,
multi-tasking allows
several programs
to be running in memory, waiting for
you. the user, to use them. You can
be working on one of these
programs, a word processor for
instance, and suddenly realise that
you need to do some mathematics
so that you can put the answers to
some calculations in your document.
Ordinarily, you would have to quit out
of the word processor, load up the
calculator program (OK, I'm
assuming you don't have a pocket
calculator, but you get the idea), do
your sums and write down the
answers, then quit out of the
calculator and load your word
processor again, load in your
document, find where you were in it
and type in the answers from your
piece of paper. Quite a hassle. With
the Amiga, the calculator could have
been waiting in the background all
along, eager to help you out. A
couple of mouse clicks brings it into
action, and you can get your results
there and then. Again, a couple of
mouse clicks brings back the word
processor, exactly where you left it.
With more sophisticated software,
you will often find that the data can
be directly transferred from one
program to another, saving you even
more work.

Another advantage of multi-
tasking is in running programs which
require little or no user input. For
instance, you could set a landscape
generator going, and meanwhile get
on with adding up your family
accounts or whatever.

Theoretically, there is no limit to
the number of programs you can
have running at once. In practice, the
number is limited by your available
memory: each program requires its
share. Also, the more programs that
are running, the slower the machine
becomes overall. This is because of
the way multi-tasking works.

The central processor of a
machine like the Amiga can only do
one thing at a time. A part of the
Amiga's operating system known as
Exec (for Executive) decides what the
processor will do next. It looks at all
of the programs running, and gives
each of them in turn a little slice of
the processor's time. This swapping
from one program to another

VII AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

_,■.''; jfnf.

DiskCopy 1.3.2

happens so fast
that all of the

programs seems

to be running at
once, it's all verv

clever, osppnally

when you consider
that Exec itself is

just one amongst

the many
programs running
in this way.

To be fair.

there arc a couple The display you can expect when copying (duplicating) a
of disadvantages disk. A disk Is divided up into 80 cylinders, most of which
to multi tasking.

The first is that it is often
unnecessary. It can be useful, but
ore often than not you will want to
use your computer for one job at a
time. But because multi-tasking is
such a complex business, it means
that the Amiga's operating system is
much bigger and complex than it
might otherwise be. And this means
that tt is more likely to fall over

occasionally, which leads us on to

the second disadvantage: crashing.
On mini ond mainframe computers,
which as well as being multi-tasking
also support several users, each
program is well protected from all of
the others running at the same time.
That way, if one program crashes,
the rest can go on unharmed. With
the Amiga, though, this is not the
case. It is possible for a rogue
program to effect any others that
may be present. In general, if one
program crashes on the Amiga, they
all crash and the machine has to be
re-booted. If you've been entering
your accounts for the last hour and a
half when your Mandelbrot program
decides to crash, all of your typing
will be lost. This is one good
argument for saving your work to disk
at regular intervals.

COPYING DISKS

The first thing that you should do
after unpacking your new Amiga is to
make copies of your Workbench and
Extras disks. This advice also
applies to any other disks that you
get - although most games and
some serious software won't allow
you to do this in the interests of
preventing piracy.

Copying aisks is a good idea
because disks have a tendency to

get corrupted and lose whatever is

stored on them from time to time.

Always use the backup copies that
you have made, and store the
originals in a safe place against the
eventuality that your backups fail.

Copying disks on the Amiga is
easy, although if you only have one
disk drive it can take a little bit of
time. In the following description, I'll
assume that you only have one
floppy disk drive.

First, boot the machine up as
normal (this simply means switch it

on and put in the Workbench disk
when you are told to do so'). Then
insert the disk that you want to copy.
Move the pointer over the disk's
icon, and click on it once with the
left-hand mouse button. The icon
should change colour. Now. using
the right-hand mouse button, go to
the Workbench menu at the top of
the screen and select the Duplicate
option. A requester will appear
asking you to replace the Workbench
disk. Do this. There is no need to
click on the 'Retry' box (although you
can if you really want): the Amiga will
realise when you have inserted the
correct disk.

You will then be asked to insert
the disk that you want to copy.
Having done this, you will be asked
to insert the 'SOURCE' disk. Actually,
this is exactly the same as the disk
that you want to copy. If you are sure
you have inserted the right one, click
on the Continue gadget in the
requester with the left-hand mouse
button. The Amiga will start reading
the information from the disk,
keeping you informed as to how
much of the reading it has done and
how far it still has to go.

After a time, you will be asked to
insert the 'TO' disk. Insert a spare
disk, but be sure that there is
nothing on it which you want to keep,
since all of its original contents will
be lost. Once this disk is inserted,
click on the Continue gadget. The
Amiga will start writing the new
information to the disk.

Once this is done, you will be
asked to insert the SOURCE disk
again. This process of swapping
disks will continue until the whole of
the original disk has been read and
susbequently written to the new disk.
After this, the new disk will be
named as "copy of [name of
original]'.

It is usually a good idea to
rename the disk as something more
sensible. To do this, select the disk
by clicking once on its icon with the
left-hand mouse button, then go to
the Workbench menu and select the
Rename option. Delete the text of
the old name in the box provided,
and then type in the name by which
you want to refer to the disk. When

you are done, press the [Return] key
and the whole process is finished.

THE SHELL

Although most things that would
ordinarily require a keyboard can be
done on the Amiga using the mouse
and WIMP system, there are
nevertheless hidden depths which
can only be accessed by means of
good old typing. These functions are
performed by using the Shell, which
has an icon that looks like a
miniature window.

Older versions of Workbench
(version 1.2 and below) don't have a
Shell. Instead, they have a CLI
(standing for Command Line
Interface), which works in pretty
much the same way but lacks some
of the Shell's more advanced
features and is therefore a bit more
awkward to use. The CLI's icon looks
just like that of the Shell, and may
be found in the System drawer of the

Workbench disk. If it is not visible.

the Preferences icon must be clicked
on (inside the Preferences drawer).
Once loaded. Preferences will display
a screen-full of options, one of wh»ch
will refer to the CLI. Click on this,
and next time you look in the System
drawer the CLI will be there, ready
and waiting.

Clicking twice on the Shell or CLI
icon will open a text window on the
screen. It is generally a good idea to
enlarge this window so that it takes
up all of the screen, since a lot of
text can be generated when you are
working here.

A full description of what can be
done in the Shell is really beyond the
scope of this section, but we'll give
you a quick taster. One of the most
used commands is the 'directory*

command, which gives a list of files
(programs and collections of data) on
a disk. When the Shell opens, you
are presented with a 'prompt' inside
the window. At this prompt, type the
word 'dir* and press the [Return] key.

The disk will whirr, and you will
be given a list of all of the files on
the disk. You may be surprised to
find that there are a lot more files
than there are icons when viewed
from an ordinary window. For a file to
be shown as an icon, it must have a
corresponding file with the same
name but followed by the characters
'.info'. This second file contains
information about the icon, such as
what it looks like, what kind of file it
represents, and where on the screen
it should be displayed.

Some filenames have the
characters '(dir)' after them. This is
not part of the name, but an
explanation that the file in question
is not a file at all but a directory. A
directory is exactly the same as a
Workbench drawer. Things are held
within it. For example, on the
Workbench disk there is a directory
called 'c' (standing for commands').
This is not visible except from the
Shell, because there is no
corresponding 'c.info' file and
therefore no icon. To find out what is
in this directory, type 'dir c' and
press [Return]. What is displayed is
a list of files. In this case, each of
them is a program which you can run
by typing its name in at the Shell
prompt. If you look closely, you will
find a command called 'dir'. which is
the one you have been using to look
at the Workbench disk's contents.
For more information about the Shell,
check out Mark Smtddy's monthly
AmigaDOS column. QJ

IN NEXT MONTH'S ISSUE

Every month In Amiga Shopper we
print 16 pages of Amiga Answers -
answers for everyone from
beginners to experts. If you have a
question, fill In the form on page 50
and pop It In the post to us.

Amongst the questions we
Intend to answer In next month's
issue are the following:

• "How can I get fonts bigger than
50pt for use wrth PageSettet?"

• "How can I get Proiaxt to print
out a mall merge without stopping
whenever the printer buffer
becomes full?"

• "Can I use a flicker fixer
alongside a 24-bit colour board and
a genlock on my A1500?"

• -Where are the DOS library
subroutines? And why when I load a

program for diss assembling In
Monam does it end up In lots of bits
and pieces around memory Instead
of as a nice simple block with a
start and end address?"

• "Why won't my version of
Professional Page work unless I
boot up with tt? Shouldn't t be able
to multi-task rt along with other
programs?"

• -Just what to the advantage of

Kickstart 1.3 over 1.2? How easy Is
it to upgrade, and would I better off
waiting for version 2.0?"

• "How can I get my 'hello world*
program to compile Into an
executable file under NorthC. It
compiles OK, but when the
assembler gets hold of ft an
undefined symbol error Is given."

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

AMOS

It's been years in the making,
but AMOS 3D is now finally
available for you to buy. And
you should, too, because it's a
super piece of software, as you'll
see. This month we also have a very
useful little tip from Francois Lionet,
the man behind AMOS. Plus demos,
tips and ideas; read on...

AMOS 3D

I've waited a long time for AMOS 3D,
and as the days stretched out into
months it began to seem that
perhaps it was impossible, that you
couldn't create 3D objects and move
them around in real time using a
Basic interpreter. But now it's out,
and wc con all breathe a sigh of
relief. I've tried it, and It works!

To install AMOS 3D. all you have
to do is run the install program

This month Phil South looks at the
release version of AMOS 3D, and
checks out a tip from Francois
Lionet the creator of AMOS

supplied on the disk. This is an
AMOS program which first of all
allows you to install AMOS 1.3
(which is needed if you intend to run
either AMOS Compiler or AMOS 3D)
on a floppy or hard disk, if you don't
already have that version of the
program. AMOS 3D is an extension
to AMOS, not a program that you run
separately, so it's actually installed
into your version of AMOS. To let you
know that 3D is installed, the words
'Voodoo 3D extension I 1.00' are
included with the other extensions
on your AMOS startup screen when
you run the program.

CHANT AFTER ME: OM

You are now ready to run the object
modeller program, OM. This is
launched either by typing 'OM' if
you're a CLI-head. or simply clicking
on the icon if you are running from
Workbench. OM prefers to run alone,
so free up memory by quitting any
other programs you may have
running before you start.

OM is a stand-alone program
which allows you to create objects
for use within AMOS. The program
features a lot of tools for stretching,
squashing and forming primitives like
squares, circles, cubes and

pyramids. You copy the primitives to
work areas on the screen called
'shelves' (I don't know why. so don't
ask), where you then work on them
with the mouse, selecting a point,
line or face and deforming it by
clicking on the control handle,
holding the button down and moving
the mouse. It couldn't be simpler.

OM In action. This It the stand-alone
3D object creator program.

Once you have exotically
reshaped primitives you can 'glue'
them together to make other, more
complex objects. This is done by
simply selecting the faces that need
to be glued together on the two

AMOS HINTS AND TIPS

• There are many DOS-type calls which can be
performed from within AMOS (see the seperate boxout
on the next page for details of accessing the time and
date). One such call Is to allow file copying from within
a program. Many thanks to Alasdalr Foster of Dundee
for sending In a listing, although I couldn't make It work
property when I tried rt. However, here's a similar

routine from AMOS Programs 16 (AMOS PD disk 233):

AMOS COPY

■

' syntax: AMOSCOPY [ "Source", "Destination"]

Screen Open 0, 640, 30, 2, Hires

Flash Off

Colour 1,$FF

Line Input "Source File;"; AS

Line Input "Destination Pile:"/B$

-J
J
J

AMOSCOPY [A$,B$]

Procedure AMOSCOPY [A$,B$1

If Kxlst(A$) Then Print "Copying ",-A$?" To
";BS; : Open In 1,A$ : L-Lof (1) : Close 1
Erase 5 : Reserve As work 5,L : Bload
A$,Start(5) : Bsave B$. Start (5) To Start
(5)+L : Erase 5 : Print "...Finished" :
Else Print "File Not Found ";A$
End Proc

If you have any hints and tips (preferably accompanied
by mini listings) that you want to share with the rest of
us, send them to me: Phil South, AMOS Column, Amiga
Shopper, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BAl 2BW. Or you
can e-mail me on CIX (snoutyOclx.compullnk.co.uk),
Mlcronet (219997854). Telecom Gold (74:MIK2077) or
The Direct Connection (uadU35@dircon.uucp).

objects and clicking on the correct
control; the program then
automatically joins the two objects.
Next you apply surface detail -
patterns In Tour colours which you
can map to the selected face of the
object. This is done by drawing lines
on a grid, which are then filled before
they hit the face of the object. The
neat thing about these surface detail
grids is that they can be copied to
and from objects at will, so you can
copy a face back on to the grid if you
forgot how to draw it, even if the
object is one you created ages ago.

USING OBJECTS

Once the AMOS 3D extension has

been installed into
AMOS, you can load
and move 3D
objects in your
AMOS programs
using a series of
new commands. To
use these
commands, you
have to come to
terms with the idea
of space: 3D space.
The world now has a
trio of axes, called x,
y and z; x and y are
the ones we are used to on the
computer screen, and translating
objects around that screen merely
involves adding numbers to their (x.y)
coordinates - like the numbers
following a move sprite' command,
which alter its position. But now you
have an extra dimension - that of
depth - known as the z dimension.

AMOS 3D's new set of
commands are called 'To"
commands, and these preface any
3D commands you put in your
programs. For instance. I knocked up
this example in about 10 seconds
flat, using one of the examples on
the disk as a basis.

'* Snoutwedge Demo vl.l *

Td Dir "cm: om/ examples"

Hide

Double Buffer

Autoback

Td Load "snoutwedge*

Td Object l,*«noutwedge" # J

0,0,5000,0,5000,-4000

Palette ,,,,,,,,, $FFF, $P, $777

Repeat

Rem Hove your objects here

Td Angle 1,A,0,A

T A AMIGA SHOPPER • IS5U6 7 • NOVSMB6R 1991

AMOS

X=A + 1000

CIS

Td Rodcaw

Rem You can draw on top of

thm 3D objects horo

Screen Swap

Hem Sync with screen display

Wait Vfel

Until False

DouDle Duftenng is
definitely required
to smooth the
transition between
one redraw and the
next: in fact, this is

the way such things
are done in

professional 3D
programs written in
assembler.

As well as
rotating the objects
and moving them in and out of the
screen, you can animate the surface

detail, animate the shape, perform

gollision detection with other 3D

shapes and generally do all the
things you'd associate with a top-
flight 3D game or PD demo disk by a
really talented vector graphics crew.
It ail sounds like a bit of a dream
really, doesn't it? But it's all true.
The 'Snoutwedge demo' above works
like a dream, and although it's not a
silky smooth as I would like, the
effect is undeniably solid and
professional-looking.

SUMMING UP

AMOS 3D completes the AMOS
system with a big flourish. Now it's
possible to create not only games,
but a whole variety of new and hi-
tech programs. Virtual reality? Well
no. not really, but AMOS 3D is
certainly o Ycry good 3D program,
and as a modeller I much prefer it to
3D Construction Kit. I can't really
fault it, and although I could say that
I'd like to see it work a little faster, I
know this isn't really possible.
Compiling obviously smooths things
out, but not all that much.

My only wish is for a utility to
transfer objects from one disk to
another, as an object is made of a
number of obscurely named files,
and you have to load them into OM

and eavo thorn to another disk in
order to be sure of getting all the
files. Otherwise I'd call AMOS 3D the
perfect complement to the AMOS
system, and one that I know I'll be

using a lot in the weeks to come.
DEMO CORNER

Europress keeps me well stocked
with AMOS demos, and some of the
very best these days come from that
wacky French demo crew Syntex.
Their current opus is called Dark
Ages, and is a two-disk megademo,
containing all manner of plasma and
3D effects I didn't think were

possible in AMOS on its own. But
then. Syntex are certainly no ordinary
bunch of AMOS hackers!

My particular favourite part of the
demo is the 3D bit, where the
program asks you to put on red/blue
specs, and then proceeds to show a

Part of the Dark Ages demo from Syntex
- and its all done In AMOS!

3D object which floats about an inch
in front of the screen. Very clever
stuff indeed.

The AMOS PD Library continues
to do good things for AMOS, and for
PD in general, and this month's crop
of new AMOS PD is no exception.
Some of the stuff I received was
from Deja Vu Software, and was very
high quality indeed. FracGen II, for
example, is a collection very smart
fractal programs, some of which I've
never seen before. All of them are
written in AMOS, and all of them are
very neatly done. The whole thing
works on a menu system, so it all
looks fabulous. T-Tec Draw is a
technical drawing program which gets
a higher resolution from your printer
by using a 4x4 screen super bitmap.
CAT is the Creative Adventure
Toolkit, a program that enables you
to write text adventures with graphics
and sound which you can then save
as stand-alone versions for resale.

Well, that's all we have time for this
month I'm afraid. Join me again next
time, when I'll be looking at AMAL
again, and checking out the new
release of AMOS - version 1.31.
See you then! Q)

ooooooooo

SHOPPING LIST

AMOS can be obtained from
lo<al stockist or from:

Evropress Software
Europo House, Adlington Pork,
Macclesfield SK 1 4NP
* 0625 859333

Al AMOS PD software (an be

obtained from:

AMOS PD Library
25 Pork Rood,
Wigan WN6 7AA.
« 0942 495261

TIME AND DATE TUTORIAL

Francois Lionet, the creator of AMOS, Is always being
asked If DOS functions can be accessed from the
program. Well, of course they can, but you need to
know what knobs to twiddle, as It were. One of the
most popular questions Is how to access the time and
date from the Internal clock In the Amiga using AMOS,
so here Is Francois' solution. Use It by merging the
procedure with your regular AMOS programs, and you
will be able to run a clock from an AMOS program, or
even do weird stuff like plotting the positions of stars
from the actual date and time!

' How to get TIME and DATE in AMOS

_DATE$ : Print ParamS

_TIME$ : Print Param$

■

Procedure _DATE$

1 Call DOS DateStamp function
T$=SpaceS(12)
Dreg ( 1 ) =Varptr (T$ )
RIEN=Doscall(-192)
NJ=Leex<Varptr(T$) )

' rind this year's first day

A=1978 : JOUR-7

HIS=0 • If (A and 3) =0 : BIS=1 t End If

Exit If NJ-365-BIS<0

Add JOOR,l+BIS : If JODR>7 : Add JOUR, -7

End If

Add NJ,-365-BIS

Inc A

Loop

•

• Find month
M=l
DO

Read N

Exit If NJ-N<0

Add NJ,-N : Inc M

Loop

Inc NJ
>

' String them together

J$=Mid$(Str$(NJ),2) : If Len(J$)<2 ; J

J$="0 M +J$ : End If

M$=Mid$(Str$(M),2) : If Len(M$)<2 : J

M$*"0"+M$ : End If

A$=Mid$(Str$(A>,2)

DATE$=J$+ w -"+K$+' f -"+A$

•

■ Length of each month

Data 31,28+813,31,30,31,30,31,31,30,31,30.31

•

End Proc [DATES]
Procedure _TIHE$

' Call DOS function
T$=Space$<12)

Dreg ( 1) -Varptr (T$>
RIEN=Doscall ( -192 )
MN^Leex ( Varptr <T$ ) +4 )

SBC* Leek ( Varptr <T$ ) +8 )

•

1 Minutes calculation

H*MN/60 : H$=Mid$(Str$ (H) . 2) ; If Len(H$)<2 J

: H$ = "0"4-H$ : End If

M=MN mod 60 : K$=Mid$(Str$<M) , 2) : If J

Len(M$)<2 : M$="0"+M$ : End If

■

1 Seconds calculation

S-SEC/50 : S$-Mid$(Str$(S),2) : If Len(S$)<2

: S$«"0"+S$ : End If

■

' Final string
TIMB$*H$+" :"♦*$+**: *+S$

Proc [TIMBSJ

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

mETIHl

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C PROGRAMMING

e our ADraw program

stands, there is no way of

caving a project from one

session and reloading it in

a future session for further editing. If

ADraw is to Decome a useful

program, then we need to rectify that

omission.

There are iwo distinct routes
which can ue taken when you are

writing file handling routines, one of

which has o further division. The
main decision is whether to save the
data as ASCII text or as raw binary
information. If raw binary is to be
chosen, then the further decision is

whether to use a completely custom

format unique to your program, or a
formot which i5 based around the IFF

standard.

Some examples are in order to
explain the pros and cons of these
two methods. All the examples will
be based around saving an example
project to disk; this project is
assumed to contain:

• A box at (100.100) that is 150
units wide and 40 units high.

• A circle at (50,80) with a radius of
30 units.

• A line starting at (100.100). going
to (150,150) and finishing at
(200.100).

This last article in Sam
Littlewood's C programming
series adds file handling to the
structured drawing program
which he has been writing

"In the interests of those of you
who occasionally re-boot or
even turn off their Amtgas, this
month I'm looking at file
handling."

Sam Lirtlewood

The above is an English description
of the data structures that would
have been allocated in memory by
ADraw.

DATA RECOGNITION

For ADraw to actually be successful
at saving and loading projects it
must be able to convert its internal
data structures into a format which
can be saved out as a disk file.
Having done that it must then be
able to recognise the various
sections of the file and recreate
internal data structures that are
equivalent to those originally used to
generate the file.

In some programs it would be
appropriate to create a disk file
which was a bytefor-byte duplicate of
the in-memory structures; Listing 1
shows an example of this type of
approach. In this listing the program
first asks AmigaDOS to create a new
empty file of a given name (replacing
any existing file of the same name).

It then uses Write() to copy bytes to
that file.

The starting point for the copy is
the address of SaveData, a structure
that has been filled in with various
values. This address is cast to be
(void *) - a generic pointer of no
particular type.

The number of bytes to write out
is determined by using the 'sizeofO'
operator. The compiler replaces
'sizeof('mem)' with the number of
bytes occupied by the sort of thing
pointed at by mem - a MemoryData
structure.

Having duplicated the referenced
chunk of memory in a disk file, the
process is reversed in
LoadFromFile(). This time around,
instead of asking AmigaDOS for a
new file - MODE.NEWFILE - an
existing file is accessed with the
MODE.OLDFILE command. If the file
did not exist. 0pen() will return zero,
and LoadFromFileO will abort its task
at that point.

The AmigaDOS function *Read()'
takes exactly the same arguments
as Write(): a handle to an open file, a
pointer to a block of memory, and a
size in bytes. Not surprisingly, Read()
fills in the memory indicated from the
contents of the file. Both Read() and
Write!) return the same value: the
number of bytes processed.

In each case, if the number of
bytes processed was not the same
as the size requested, then there
was a problem. WriteO is only likely
to return a value less than requested
when the destination disk is full - a
possible but fairly rare event. A more
common situation, especially when
debugging, is there not being enough
data in the file to satisfy the request
to Read(). The size returned in this
case will be that which was available
from the file.

This example will successfully
save and load some test data, but it
does have its problems. Before

(Mtinved on poot 78

POWERWINDOWS

This series has. on purpose, not used any tools other than the Amiga and a
C compiler. If you are prepared to shell out a bit more, though, there are
some extra tools that can - with care - help development along.

One such tools is PowerWindows, currently standing at version 2.5. It
Is touted as the final and only word In creating your user interfaces -
menus, gadgets and so on. Well, It Is certainly the first word, but there are
some targe tracts of the story It really Just skips past.

The general Idea behind the program is that you take advantage of an
easy-to-use Amiga-style interface - windows, mouse, gadgets, requesters
and menus - to drag, move, stretch and label all the bits for your own easy-
to u-jo Amiga-style Interface (windows...
etc). Having done this you push a
button and out comes ready-to-compile
source codo for tho front-end of your

application.

A law hops, aUipa and idyllic jumps

and there stands a work of art,
complete and easy to use.

Hmm. I wish.

PowerWindows certainly does let
you create all the elements of the
Intuition Interface and edit all the
various attributes - work that would

normally entail editing large numbers of

PowerWindows Is useful for creating the prototype of a front-end,
but needs some improvements before it will be truly the last word'.

structures. It does also generate correct source code (in one of several
languages) for all of these things. Personally I have found this Its most
useful aspect - I can get It to create roughly the right sort of thing, and
then take the generated source code and clean it up to my own
requirements.

One particularly good feature is the ability to load IFF brushes In and
use them as the Imagery for gadgets. It saves out the whole shooting
match, Including all the correct definitions and arrays for the picture data.

One of the problems I have with PowerWindows is Its own user
Interface. It does not lend Itself to fast or Intuitive work, and It can take a

long time to get a reasonably
complicated set of gadgets evenly
spaced and lined up - longer than It
would have taken to save out the source
and tweak the structures directly. So far
this has been the way things have gone
for me: I have used It to prototype the
way a front-end might look, used It to
generate the first draft of all the gadget
structures, and then taken It from there
by hand.

Conclusion? Well, PowerWindows
is no silver bullet, but It does have Its
uses for getting ideas together.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

PROGRAMMING

LISTING 1 • LISTING 1

"include s«x«6/typoo.h>

•include <Iibrarioo/dOB .h>

- de* ...- T^BIZZ 4

■"define N SIZE 128

/'An example template for some data to be eaved and loaded

■ttuuL MemoryDaia <

int 1/
int J;

lnc k;
int 1;

float f[F.SXZE];
ohar n [N_SXZK] ;

);

/* An instance of that above structure, initial Laed to aome
non-zero values

•/

Struct lUuorynata Sav*Data - ( 1,3,3,4, ( 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 ),

"A nam" }l

M Xnottiar Instant?* of tho ium itructur*, but un ini t ialiaed

struct MemorvData LoadData;

/• SaveToFile

* Writ* a data atructur* Co tha olv*r. fil

* Return if auccaaa, 1 if failure

int SaveToFile (char 'name, struct MemoryData *mem)

BPTR filehandle;

int lanoth*

/* Open a new file (if file exists it will be truncated to

LttQtu)

filehandle e Open ( name, MODE NEWF II. E) ;
if (filehandle « -1)

return 1;
/* Copy data front memory to file

laro J

aizeof ( •men) ) ;

length * writetf i lehandle, (void •)
/* Close the file

•/

Cloae(filehandle);

if (length == aizeof ( •mem) )

return 0;
elae

return 1;

)

/* LoadFromFile

* Fill in a data structure from the contents of a named file

* Return if aucceas, 1 if failure

int LoadFromFi let char *name, etruct MemoryData •mem)

PPTP filahandla;

int length;

/* Try to open an existing file

filehandle - Open ( name . MODE OLDFILE) ;

if (filehandle == 0)

return 1;
/* Copy data from file to memory
•/
length a Rea<3(filehandle, (void *)mem, sizeof (*mem) )/
/• Cloae the file
*/

Cloee(filehandle) ;
If I length — Bizeof (•mem))

return 0;

else

return 1;

)

/* A Sime main program f chain a abve exarales together - Save

tfc« (nicLaliaaa

* Oaia -u a flic* and then loadit UacK into another structure

•/

int main (int argc, char *argv)

if ( SaveToFi le ( " test . data" , fcSaveData ) ) (

printf ("Could not save flie\n");
exit (10) ;

}

if (LoadFromFilei "test. data", (tboadData)) (

prlntf (-Could not load fila\n")/

exit(lO);

printf ( "\s\n" , LoadData . n) ;

continued from page 77

looking at these problems, though,
let's take a quick look at 'levels' of
file handling is in order.

TRACKING RESOURCES

Listing 1 goes straight to AmigaDOS.
It is the lowest 'OS legal' way of
getting at files. The only help from
the C compiler is the instructions to
put arguments in the appropriate
68000 registers for AmigaDOS.

This is fast and simple, and
there is no 'hidden' code added in to
our program; however. AmigaDOS
does not perform any resource
tracking. If a program opens a file
but does not close it, the file will
stay open until the machine is re-
booted. (This same lack of resource
tracking also holds true for memory
allocation: unfreed memory that was
allocated directly from AmigaDOS
will, if forgotten, stay reserved until a
reset is performed.)

In the interests of portability and
controlled side effects, all C
compilers, whatever the machine
that they run on. have some 'helping
functions' as part of their libraries.
These functions are not another
route to the disk files, rather they are
a layer (or layers). The bottom side of
the layers use the AmigaDOS
functions - Open(>. Read(). Writet).
Closet) and so on. The top side of
the layers present functions that
operate in a somewhat similar
manner to the Amiga's but are
compatible with similarly-named
functions on other machines and
operating systems. In addition, the
code that makes up the layers adds

more friendly features like resource
tracking.

The first layer up from AmigaDOS
is a hangover from the origins of C.
This comprises the functions open().
read(), writeO. close() and so on.
(Note that these function names are
all lower-case, unlike the AmigaDOS
calls.) These similar functions are
replicas of the Unix system calls
upon which the C library is based.
They operate in an almost identical
fashion to the corresponding
AmigaDOS functions, but add
resource tracking - if a program that
has used these functions stops half-
way through, any open files will be
closed automatically (See Listing 2).

Using these functions is much
the same as as using raw
AmigaDOS. The only big advantage
(in a purely Amiga world) is the
resource tracking.

Taking the unorthodox view that
there are other sorts of computers in
existence besides the Amiga,
another potential advantage of using
these functions is that almost any
commercial C compiler on any
machine will provide these functions
in its library, and they will work in
exactly the same way - allowing
some or all of a program to be simply
recompiled without editing if you wish
it to run on another computer.

A disadvantage of using these
functions - especially if your program
is civilised enough to keep track of
what files it has open, and close
them when it exits - is that a layer of
code has been bolted on by the
compiler to convert these standard
calls into the sort of things expected

LISTING 2 e LISTING 2

■include <fcntl.h>

/* Pile loading using C library calls

•/

int LoadFromFi le (char *name, struct MemoryData *mem)

{

int filehandle; /** File handle is no longer a BPTR **/

int length;

/* Try to open an existing file

filehandle = open ( name , 0_RDONLY ) ; /** Different argument J

used to signify mode **/

if (filehandle ■- -1) /** Different return value on J

error •*/

return 1;

/* Copy data from file to memory

length ■ read(f ilehandle, (void *)mem, sizeof ( # mem) ) ;

if (length != sizeof (•mem) ) <

/•• Program can be safely aborted without explicitly J

closing files

•*/

exit(lO);

)

/• Close the file

•/

close (filehandle) ;

)

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

PROGRAMMING

by AmigaDOS. This code is added in
during the link phase, and adds fuel
to the criticism that 'C programs are
always big'.

FREE FUNCTIONS

This te not we end of it. There is a
further layer that can be called upon

to increase the size of programs.
Again, this is a layer that is common
to all C compilers the world over, but
instead of trying to mimic an

operating system it does actually

provide some added bang for the
bytes it takes up.

This layer is the 'stdio 1 library. Its

pervasiveness is indicated by the
ubiquitous '#include <stdio.h>' that

appears in almost all C programs.

The library is an evolved grab-bag of
functions for getting data in to and

out of programs in a rather more
programmer friendly way than the
simple lump of bytes to or from"
provided by AmigaDOS. Although
stdio still winds up using AmigaDOS
at the end of the day. it wraps it up
in a neater fashion.

The most common stdio function

is pnntto. which takes a format
string and some arguments, merges
them together and prints them out.

This can have a rather
unfortunate side effect. A program
that simply uses printfl), such as the

standard "Hello World' example
known by all C programmers, will
cause the compiler to haul in the
stdio layer and add it to the program.
as well as any other intermediate
layers that stdio uses to get its job
done (typically resource tracked
memory allocation - mallocO and so
on). This leads to hordes of
assembly language programmers
looking over one's shoulder and
sucking in breath between pursed
lips before muttering about how they
wrote a whole operating system in
less than half that amount of
memory. (Arguments constructed
around the time taken to write and
debug equivalent programs in various
languages are left as an exercise for
the reader...)

Stdio has its own functions for
opening and closing files - fopen()
and fclose(). The fopen() function
takes yet another style of argument
to indicate how the file should be
opened; there is no deeply logical
reason for this, just perversity and
progress. There are also equivalents
to Read() and Write(>: fread() and
fwrite(). These again take a slightly
different style of argument but
appear to operate in the same
manner.

There is. however, one major
difference between using stdio and

LISTING 3 • LISTING 3

#include <stdio.h>

/* Pile loading using Stdio style calls

int LoadFromFile(char *name, struct MerooryData *mem)

FILE *filehandle; /** New sort of filehandle (from J

stdio. h) **/

int blocks;

/* Try to open an existing file

filehandle ■ f open ( name, "rb"); /•* Different argument J

used to signify mode **/

if (filehandle « NULL) /** Different return value on J

error ***/

return 1;

/* Copy data from file to memory

/** Different order and style of arguments -

Pointer to memory

Sice of a block

HuuiLui £e blocko

Pile handle

blocks - f read ((void •Jmem, oizeof (*mem) . 1, filehandle);
if(DlOCKe != 1) {

/** Program can be safely aborted without explicitly J
closing files

**/

exit (10);

/* Close the file

«/

f close ( file h a n dle) ;

LISTING 4 • LISTING 4

/* Number of bytes to ignore when saving elements

#define SAVE. SKIP sizeof (struct MinNode)

SaveProject (.struct project *poject, char *filename)

{

struct Element * element;

* * »

for (element = HEAD(&project->elements) ;

NEXT (element);

element = NEXT ( element ) ) {

/* Start writing SAVE_SKIP bytes frcm start of element and

* reduce the written size by SAVE__SKIP

•J

Write (filehandle, ( (char

* ) telement ) +SAVE__SKIP , si zeof ( 'element ) -SAVE_SKIP) ;

going straight to AmigaDOS -

buffering.

FASTER DATA

5tdio does not normally transfer a
call to fread() directly to an
AmigaDOS Read(). It tries to
minimise the work that AmigaDOS
does by grabbing a large chunk of
the file in one go (typically either 512
bytes or IK) and then divvying that
data out in private as further calls
are made by the program to fread().
without going back to AmigaDOS until

the current chunk of data is
exhausted.

The same style of operation is
used for writes. Each call to fwriteo
or one of the other output functions -
fprintf() and fputc(). for example - will
accumulate data in a buffer internal
to the stdio layer of your program.
This data will only be passed to
AmigaDOS when the size has
reached the buffering threshold. If
data is being read in small lumps,
tens of bytes or so. then the load

continued on page 80

LISTING 5 e LISTING 5

/* There is a global array of these structures, containing J
useful information

* and function pointer particular to each element type.
*/

struct Element Act ions (

/* If non NULL, a function pointer to call during element J

creation

void (^initialise) (struct Element *);

/* If non NULL, a function pointer to call during element J

deletion

void (*delete) (struct Element *);

/* If non NULL, a function pointer to draw the one these J

elements

•/

void (*draw) (struct Drawlnfo *, struct Element *);

/* If non NULL, a function pointer to draw the select J

highlighting for

* one of these elements

void (*draw select) (struct UserWindow *, struct Drawlnfo *, J

struct Element *)/

/* An ASCII charcter used to identify this type of element J

is save files

char file_ident;

/* A function pointer to add the data particular to this

* sort of element to a save file

void (*save) (FILE *, struct Element *);

/* A function pointer to read the data particular to this

* element from save file

•/

void (*load)(FILE *, struct Element *);

);

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

C PROGRAMMING

(onlmued from poge 79

that tfiis ou"cnng takes oft
AmigaDOS can drastically improve

the speed of some programs.

A version of the LoadFromFile()

routine that uses stdio can De

wiuUiwO in Listing 3.

The rreailt) function differs from
the previous hyte-reading calls in that
it splits the rcauested amount of
data into numbers, the size of each

block of data, and number of such

uiucks to De read, in Listing 3 each
block is the size of the MemoryData

structure, and only one is required.
The return value is specified in terms
of the number of complete blocks
rood.

BACK TO THE PROJECT

Having detoured through the various
levels of file handling available from

the C compiler, the subject of how to
implement load and save in the
ADraw project returns.

All the above examples have
simply copied a block of data from
memory to disk, and then reinstated
the data in memory. For many sorts
of data this is a fast and easy
approach; integers, floating point
numbers, characters and strings will
alt survive this passage via a file.
and appear just as before.

A pointer subjected to this
method of file handling will also be
restored exactly as it was in the
saving program - unfortunately, this
is not at all what is required. The
actual byte value of a pointer is only
meaningful in terms of what it
references elsewhere in memory.
None of the above saving and
loading makes any guarantees about

LISTING 6 • LISTING 6

void s*voProject( struct Project ^project, char 'filename)

(

Otrtiet PILE *filehandle;

struct element *elementj

/* Open the output file for writina using stdio

filehandle = fopen ( filename, "w");
if (filehandle m NULL) {
Fi leError ( f i lename ) ;
return;

)

/* Walk along the list of elements for this project

for(element = HEAD(&project->elements) ;

NEXT ( element ) ;

element ■ NEXT ( element ) ) {

/* Write out the information common to all elements

fprintf( filehandle, "%c \d V5 %A %d %d %d -,

ElomentoActionoToble [element- >type J, /• Identifying J

character */ elem*nt->x, el*ment->y, /* position */

element->fg_colour, element- >bg_colour, /* coulour and J

style */

element- >outline ^colour,

element->draw_mode) ;

/* Call a function from ElementActionsTablefJ to write out

* rest of this element
*/

(*ElementActionsTable[element->type] .save) (filehandle, J

element ) ;

/* Finish the line

fprintf ( filehandle, ■ \n" ) ;

/■ Pinishad walking list - close the file

•J

i c lose ( r 1 lenancue ) ;

/* Having sucessfully saved the file, clear the -J

'modified' flag

* on the project to indicate that the user does not J

n**d querying

* of they quit before making any further modifications
*/

project ->f lags &- -PRJ MODIFIED;

)

LISTING 7 • LISTING 7

void SaveBox ( struct File *filehandle, struct Element
•element)

{

fprintf (filehandle, "%A %d",e lament ->e. box. width, element -

>e. box. height) ;

)

void SaveCircle( struct File 'filehandle, struct Element

'element )

{

fprintf (filehandle, "Sd %&" , element->e. circle. radius) ;

)

where in memory things will return to
once reloaded The bytes may be the
Same, but the position will most

likely be different.

For pointers, this is disastrous. A
linked list that was set up in the
saving program will come back
completely unlinked, as the faithfully
reproduced values of the original
pointers mean nothing in the loading
program.

To solve the problem of saving

complex data structures, we need to
convert them into a different format
that can. on reloading, be
reconstituted into a similar data
structure. ADraw projects consist of
doubly linked lists of elements in
memory. When saved to a file the
double linkage is forgotten, the
project elements are simply written
in order to the file. On reloading, the
linkage is rebuilt.

A simple solution would be to
write out each element excluding the
node structure at the front (Listing
4). This is not ideal, as it ignores the
fact that some elements have further
pointers buried in them - text
elements have pointers to strings
and lines have linked lists of points.

To get round these problems,
ADraw does not try to be efficient or
even use a format which remotely
resembles that with which the data
is stored in memory. The major
decision is that the saved project
files are in readable ASCII text. The
reasons for this are the availability of
text reading and writing functions in
the stdio library, and the ease of
debugging by simply using the 'type'
command from the Shell or some
form of text editor to see if the data
hoa come out correctly. If the file
was in binary it would appear (even

when correct) as complete garbage
when examined in this way. Making
use of the type opt h' command to
see what was really in the file would
work, but would take some mental
effort to decipher.

The file format is as follows:

• Each item in the project is
represented by one line of text in the
data file.

• The first character identifies which
particular type of item is involved.

• The next items on the line are text
versions of the data that is common
to all types of element - position,
colour and so on.

• Following the common data is
whatever extra data describes this
particular sort of primitive - width,
height, radius or whatever.

For example, the sample project
outlined at the start of this article
would look like like the following
when saved to disk:

B 100 100 12 150 40

C 50 80 1 2 30

L 100 100 1 2 150 150 J

200 100

The first characters of each line are
B. C and L - for Box, Circle and Line
respectively. The next two numbers
are the X and Y positions in project
units. For example, the circle is
centred at 50,80.

The next four numbers are the
same for each primitive in this
example, and are the four graphic
style options - foreground colour,
background colour, outline colour
and draw mode. These are the
parameters that are passed directly
to the Amiga graphics library before a
primitive is drawn.

The meaning of the rest of each
line differs. The box has two
remaining numbers, 150 and 40 -
the width and height of the box. The
circle has one number, a radius of
30. The line has two pairs of
numbers, representing the remaining
points on the line: (150.150) and
(200.100).

A TWO-PART SAVE

To create this data file, the structure
introduced in the last article needs
extending. The save function will be
split into two parts: that which is
common to all primitives, and that
which is particular to each sort of
primitive.

All the code that is particular to
each primitive in the whole program
is referenced through one array,
ElementActionsTable[], This is an
array of structures, one for each sort
of primitive. Each structure then
contains pointers to pieces of code

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

C PROGRAMMING

for various actions. So far these
actions have been: Initialisation.
Deletion, Drawing and Drawing
Selected.

To support saving and, later,
loading, the structure is extended
(Lining 5).

To save a project, the list of
elements is processed. For each

one, firet the general information is

written out ond then a function

pointer is called to write out the data

soeeific to each tvoe of element

(Listing 6). Some of the element-

SDeclfic functions that are referenced
via ElemeruActionsTable[] are shown

in Listing 7.

To load the file generated by this
process requires that the file be
opened for reading. For each line in
the file a new element is allocated.

and the general part of that structure

is filled with data from the first part
of the line. That done, a function is

called to read the remainder of the
line, particular to each type of
element. Finally the new element is
added to the tail of the current
project list (Listing 8).

ADraw can now load and save
files, albeit not very efficiently.

Having got the ASCII text-based

loading and saving working, it is
relatively easy to make the program
output raw data instead of text. The
general format of the data would
remain much the same, but instead
of numbers being converted to text
and back, they would be stored in
the file as the direct bytes from
memory representing that number.
Thus the time taken for the numeric
conversion to and from ASCII would
be saved.

A further refinement would to to
use the IFF format for saving binary
data. This format, a standard

instigated by Commodore and

Electronic Arts, has been adopted for
many other products. The most
common type is an ILBM, or bitmap
picture file as produced by DPaint,
but the format is suitable for almost
any structured data storage.

An advantage to using IFF is that
programs can dig out sections of the
file that they understand, and ignore

the rest. This means that ADraw
could include an ILBM subsection
representing a screen dump of the
saved project in its save files. It
would then be possible to get a
rough idea of what each of the saved
projects on disk looked like using
one of the existing ILBM Tile viewers.
These would ignore the real ADraw
data in the file and go for the bit they
understood, the bitmap picture, and
display it on screen.

AND FINALLY...

This series has covered various
aspects of a medium-sized Amiga
application. Hopefully, it has given
some clues as to the methods
available for getting an application
going.

There are hundreds of
enhancements that could be made to
ADraw. however, the basic structure
of the application is there and so far
it has remained exceedingly simple.

Two big pitfalls of getting an
application going have (so far) been
avoided. A good way to stymie a
program is by excess optimisation -
spend all the time on it optimising
for speed and size, and missing out
the usability or never quite fixing all
the bugs that have been hidden in
the fast but strange code. And trying
to add every feature that springs to
mind before a consistent framework
is in place leads to big programs
(lots of places for bugs) that can get
distinctly unusable - with several
ways of accomplishing the same
thing buried in different parts of the
code.

Another big pitfall is not writing
anything at all.

But given a computer, a compiler
and some inspiration, there must be
something that springs to mind!

Those readers with access to the
CIX on-line conferencing system will
find the full source code to ADraw,
along with an executable version of
the program. In the amlgashopper'
conference. If you make any
changes or Improvements to ADraw,
please feel free to write In and let
us know what you have done. Q3

JARGO

BUSTING

Intuition - The Dart of the Amiga's operating system concerned with

window handling, menus and so forth. It interprets user input
from the mouse and sends information to the relevant windows
via the Intuition Direct Communication Message Ports (IDCMP).

Linked list - A method of storing data. The data is collected into a series
of similar groups or records; part of the data in each of these
records is a pointer to the next record in the list. The last record
will typically have the value 'NIL' in its pointer location,
signifying that no otner records follow it. Linked lists are a
useful method of storing large, varying numbers of data records
in memory.

ooooooooooooooo

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Bedford MX45 5DE
tr 0525718181

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C - A Dabhand Guide

Published by Dabs Press

Computer Manuals Ltd
» 021 706 6000

.£14.95

Amiga C for Beginners £18.45

Published by Abacus
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©021-706 6000

Amiga C for Advanced Programmers.

IJLIJ

Published by Abacus
Computer Manuals Ltd
« 021-706 6000

Tke C Programming
Language £24.95

Published by Prentice Hall

Computer Manuals Ltd
©021-706 6000

LISTING 8 • LISTING 8

void LoadProject {struct Project *project, char *filename)

(

struct FILE *filehandle;

struct element 'element;

char type_chr;

int i;

/* Open the output file for reading using stdio

filehandle = fopen( filename, T") ;

if (filehandle == NULL) {

FileError (filename) ;

return;

)

/* Loop while there are still lines to be read from the file

while ( ! f eof ( filehandle) {

/* Allocate the new element strucure

ele me nt = AllocMem{sizeof (*element) ,MEMF_CLBAR) ;

if (element == NULL) AllocError(AE_ELEMENT) i

/* Fill in general information and read the type letter

♦/

fscanf (filehandle, "%z %d %d *d %d %d *d ".type_chr,

&element->x, &element->y, /* position */

&element->fg_colour,&element->bg__colour, /* colour and J

style */

&element->outline_colour,

&element->draw_mode) ;

/* Fi n d the element type that mathes the type character

for(i=0; i< NUM_ELEMENTS; i++)

if (ElementActionsTable[i] . file__ident " type_chr)

break;

/* If above loop ran to completion, then no match was J

found */

i£(i >- MOM_ELEMNTS) {

FatalError( "unrecognised element type In file");
return;

/* Call special case function to read in rest of elment

•/

(*ElementActionsTable[i3 .load) (element) ;
/* Add new element to end of project

ADDTAIL(&project->element8, element) ;

}

/* Close the input file

fclose(f ilehandle) ;

}

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

PROGRAMMING

"People who program in Bosk
sometimes have trouble getting
to grips with library calls. If
you're one of those people,
read on..."

n Crackncll

Versions of Basic are
relatively similar to each
other - that is one of the
major advantages of the
language. However. GFA Basic has

some little quirks and peculiarities

all of its own, and for this reason

many programmers - even
experienced ones - find themselves
consulting the manual frequently.

On doing that, you soon discover
that GFA's irregularities are not only
confined to the language but extend
to the layout of the manual and the
descriptions therein. However, it
does follow some sort of bizarre
logic, so after a while things start to
make sense, and you can generally
find the answer you are looking for.

Dean Cracknel! takes a look at
hov/ you can use the Amiga's
built-in system libraries to give
your GFA Basic programs a
proper Intuition look and feel

Until you get to Section 11. the
system routines, that is. where you
find nearly 100 pages devoted to
library calls without a word of
explanation on how to use them.
To find explanations, another
book is required - the Amiga ROM
Kernel Reference Manual: Libraries &

Devices. This is a beautifully
detailed, well-written description of
the system library calls function,
crammed with worked examples of
how to set up the data and
subsequently call each routine. (At
this point it is worth pointing out that
the Amiga operating system was not

FIGURE 1 - GADGET STRUCTURE

Gadget
Structure

* NEXT Gadget

Gadget Structure J

Gadget Position

Gadget Size

Gadget Rags

Activation
Type

* Gadget Render

Left Edge, Top Edge

Width,

See Figure 3a
See Figure 3b
See Figure 3c

Border/Image Structure

Select Render

* Gadget Text

(

V
/-

Border/image Structured
Intuitext Structure)

Mutual Exclude

Reserved

* Special Info

Gadget I.D.

* User Data

I for Prop Gadget
User Defined

Address of User Data J

written in Basic.) Unfortunately this
manual is entirely devoted to C
programmers and is of little use
unless you are fluent in that
language and its structures and data-
pointers, as well as having access to
the C header files that contain the
definitions of all the structures. The
contents of the header files can be
found in yet another technical
manual - the Amiga ROM Kernel
Reference Manual: Includes &
AutoDocs. which has all the
readability of a Swahili telephone
directory.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This series of articles will attempt to
bridge the gap between the GFA
Basic manual and the ROM Kernel
Manuals {RKMs) by giving examples
of how to set up your own custom
gadgets. But nothing can replace the
RKMs; if you want to program the
Amiga property you need these
books, starting with Libraries &
Devices.

Gadgets, for those not used to
Amiga terminology, are things like
the requesters and system dialogue
boxes which make an Amiga program
into an Amiga program. Many Basic
programmers don't bother with them
- but programs which use gadgets
always look more impressive and
professional that those which don't.

Remember when you are
experimenting with system calls that
GFA Basic leaves the error handling
up to the operating system, so the
odd Guru Meditation will occur,
regardless of how careful you are -
so make sure you save your
programs before running them.

Before we begin, here are the
only things you actually need to know
about C:

• A 'structure' is similar to an array
in Basic, except that each element in
a structure can be a different data
type.

• 'Pointers' are variables that hold
memory addresses where the data
can be found. In C. pointers can be
easily identified because the are
prefixed with a '*'. If the pointer is
used without the"*' then it will

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 19V1

PROGRAMMI

return the address of the data; with

tho ' ■ the data at tnat address win

be returned.

• Trie C header files contain all the
structure definitions and flag values
used to set up the data used by the
oyotcm library colls. We do not have
Ihcs© header files.

GADGETS

Gadgets are areas of the screen

which, respond when clicked with the

mouse pointer. These gadgets come

in many guises - disk, drawer and
project icons, for example, are all

examples of gadgets.

When you open a drawer on the
rtAsUTrtrv The resulting window which
appears contains 11 gadgets around
Its border tnat nave been set up by

the system so that you can control
the window - its position, size and

soon.

mere are. though, only three
distinct types of gadget, classified by
their method of operation: Boolean.
String and Proportional.

A much simplified gadget

structure is shown in Figure 1 on the

opposite page. The gadget structure
consists of some data which is used
to position the gadget, and list of
pointers to other data structures
which will contain information that
will be used to finally draw the
gadget on the screen.

The rendering that will be used to
create the gadget can be one of two
distinct forms: Border, which usually
comprises some text surrounded by
a box; and Image, which is a pictorial
graphic like the Workbench's Disk

and Project icons. The alternate'
image is an optional image that can
be used to show that the gadget is
selected, and must be of the same
render type as the unselected
gadget. If an alternate image is not
provided, then there are a number of
ways that Intuition can be used to
highlight the selected gadget
automatically.

The C header file 'intuition. h'
contains a definition of a structure

"The odd Guru

Meditation will

occur, regardless of

how careful you

are

that is used to define a gadget,
which is shown in Figure 2a along
with the number of bytes which each
part of the structure requires. At this
point the structure does not exist,
and no memory has been allocated
to store the information - it is merely
a definition of what the structure will
look like when it is eventually
declared.

Do not worry about exactly what
the structure means; all we are
interested in at the moment is how
much memory to reserve for it in
Basic. In C a BYTE and a UBYTE are

FIGURE 2a

STRUCTURE DEFINITION

BYTES REQ'D

struct Gadget {

struct Gadget *NextGadget; 4

SHORT LeftEdge; 2

SHORT TopEdge; 2

SHORT Width; 2

SHORT Height; 2

USHORT Flags; 2

USHORT Activation; 2

USHORT GadgetType; 2

APTR GadgetRender; 4

APTR SelectRender; 4

struct IntuiText *GadgetText; 4

LONG MutualExclude; 4

APTR Speciallnfo; 4

USHORT GadgetID; 2

APTR UserData; 4

}

TOTAL = 44 bytes

one byte long: a SHORT and a
USHORT are two bytes long (the
same as a WORD in Basic); a LONG
is four bytes; and all pointers -
including APTRs - are also four
bytes. By adding up all the memory
used, we can calculate how much
space is required each time a border
structure is declared;

4+2+2+2+2+2+2+2+4+4+4+4+4+2
+4 = 44 bytes.

Because GFA Basic does not have
data structures, we have to create
them ourselves. The first step in
achieving this is to allocate some
memory, and the simplest and most
reliable way of doing this is to use
the INLINE statement:

INLINE mylgad%,44

The statement above reserves 44
bytes for the gadget structure, and
sets the variable called 'myigad%* to
hold the start address of this space.
In another implementation of Basic
we would then proceed to POKE our
data into the structure. Fortunately.
GFA makes life a little easier and the
technique we would use is shown in
Figure 2b below.

When more than one gadget is to
be active on the screen at the same
time, they must be linked together in
a chain. To do this, the first gadget
contains the address of the second,
the second has the address of the
third and so on and, eventually, the
last gadget will have its link address
set to zero.

Over the next couple of months,
we will be printing six listings which
show how this particular structure is
used; they will employ the same
principles to create all the other

BLITS

Basic stands for Beginners' All-
purpose Symbolic Instruction
Code. It was invented in America
to teach students the rudiments of
programming, and is now the
most widely-used programming
language in the world - despite
having numerous detractors.

& BOBS

structures needed. The listings will
contain a number of different
gadgets to show the effects of the
various flags; these flags are
summarised in Figures 3a. 3b. 3c
and 3d over the page.

BOOLEAN GADGETS

A boolean gadget is one that acts
like a switch - so it will be either on
or off. Our listing this month shows
how to implement such a gadget in
GFA Basic.

The program shown in listing 1
sets up two windows: the first is
where the gadgets will appear, and
the second is used to display
messages about the states of the
gadgets. The program provides two
gadgets - one will switch on when

continued on page 84

FIGURE 2b

' Create the Gadget Structure

LONG{mylgad*+ 0>«0
WORD(mylgad%+ 4) =40
WORD{mylgad%+ 6) -20

WORD{mylgad%+ 8) =71
WORD{mylgad%+10)=ll
WORD { ray lgadV* 1 2 ) =
WORD{mylgadV»-14 ) =2+1

W0RD{mylgacT%+16}=l
LOMG{mylgad%+18 } -mylbrdA
LONG{mylgad\+22 } =0
LONG{mylgad%+26)«itextl%
LONG { ray lgadVf 3 } -
LONG{mylgadH+34 ) -0
WORD { my lgad%+ 3 8 } = 1
LONG {mylgad%+4 } «0

! Pointer to next gadget
! LeftEdge
! TopEdge
! Width
! Height

! Highlight by compliment
! Report Pressed & J
Released

! Type=Boolean Gadget

! GadgetRender

• SelectRender

I The Text

I MutualExclude

! Special Info (NONE)

! GadgetID (user defined)

! Pointer to UserData

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

ftl

PROGRAMMING

continued from poge 83

pressed and then switch off when

roleased. the other will toggle on
with the first press, off with the

cccond and go on. These gadgets do
not have alternate images, but will
be highlighted automatically when
Thoy are selected.

The program initially reserves
some memory for the structures that

the program will need, and then sets
up an array of a and y coordinates of

a box. This array is linked to a border

structure which, with the PRESS ME'
text structure (underneath the border

Structure, known as an IntuiText

structure) will be used to render the
complete gadget image m the third
structure, which is the gadget
uructure of the first gadget.

To create the second gadget, a
copy is made of the first, a new
IntuiText object is linked in and the
activation-flag is changed to make it
toggle when selected.

Having set up all the data
structures that are required, and
opened some windows to write to.
the next step is to invoke the
AddGList system call, which will add
our gadgets to Intuition's gadget list,
and then call RefreshGadgets to
draw them on-screen in the specified
window.

Once added to the gadget list,
the gadget becomes active -
Intuition takes over control of it.
leaving the program free to do other
things. When the gadget is clicked
on, Intuition sends an interrupt

FIG 3a - GADGET FLAGS

These flags determine the highlighting method for the gadget when
selected:

GADGHCOMP
GADGHQOX
GADGHIMAGE
GADGHNONE

&H0OOO
&H0001
&H0002
&H0003

Compliment the gadget
Draw a box around the gadget
Use an alternate image
none

This flag Is set when the gadget has an Image:

GADGIMAGE

&H0004

The folowlng are used to tag a gadget to a particular window edge:

GRELBOTTOM

GRELRIGHT

&H0008
&H0010

Relative to the bottom border
Relative to the right border

The next two flags allow the size of the gadget to change automatically
when the Indow size changes:

GRELWIDTH

GRELHEIGHT

&H0020
&H0040

Relative to the width
Relative to the height

The final flag is used to start the gadget off in Its selected state

SELECTED

&H0080

These tables lists the flags used by the various structures needed to set up
Intuition gadgets. The standard names for these from the C header files have
been used, but to use them in other languages, such as GFA Basic, their
numeric values (&Hxxxx) are required.

FIG 3c - GADGET TYPES

The codes for the three gadget types are:

BOOLGADGET

&H0001

PROPGADGET

&H0003

STRGADGET

&H0004

The GlmmeZeroZero flag is used when the window type Is
GlmmeZeroZero and allows gadgets to be placed in the borders:

GZZ6AD6ET

&H2000

message via the the Intuition Direct
Communications Message Port, or
IDCMP. to our program. To enable
the program to receive these
messages, the ON MESSAGE GOSUB
statement is used. In the example
program, all we do is SLEEP while
waiting for this message.

The final system call is to
RemoveGList, which will remove our
gadgets from the gadget list once we
have finished with them. The rest of
the listing deals with the IDCMP
event capturing to detect that a
gadget has been pressed, which is
covered in Section 9 of the GFA
Basic manual and illustrated in the
supplied 'WINDOW.GFA" example.
Next month we look at how to
Implement other types of gadget.

oooooooooj

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■ 0734 794941

FIG 3b - ACTIVATION FLAGS

When the next two flags are set, the program will be Informed when the
gadget Is ressed or released:

RELVERIFY
GADGIMMEDIATE

&H0001
&H0002

Release verify

Message sent when pressed

The next four will position the gadget In one of the window's four
borders;

RIGHTBORDER
LEFTBORDER
TOPBORDER
BOTTOMBORDER

&H0010
&H0020
&H0040
&H0080

This flag sets a boolean gadget to toggle mode:

TOGGLESELECT

&H0100

These two are for string gadgets:

STRINGCENTER

STRINGRIGHT

&H0200
&H0400

The final activation flag converts a string gadget to an long integer

gadget:

LONGINT

&H0800

FIG 3d - PROPINFO FLAGS

The proportional gadget has Its own set of flags In the Proplnfo
structure, these determine the nature of the gadget. The first flag
allows Intuition to create the gadget knob; If this bit Is not set then the
user must supply an Image structure for the knob:

AUTOKNOB

&H0001

These determine the type of slider to make:

FREEHORIZ
FREEVERT

&H0002
&H0004

This bit can be examined by the application program:

KNOBHIT

&H0100

Set by Intuition

Set the next If you do not require a box to be drawn around the slider:

PROPBORDERLESS

&H0008

<M AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1 V9 1

PROGRAMMING

LISTING 1 • LISTING 1 • LISTING 1 • LISTING 1 • LISTING 1

Simple Boolean Gadgets Example

Reserve some moory for the various structures

INLINE mylbrdr*, 16
INLINE imsgl^, 16
INLINE itextl%,20

INLINE mvlgad%,44
INLINE Unag2\, ib

inline ivext2%, 20
iNLure my2gacn>,44
DIM mylpoints&(10> ! The Boxes

First Gadget

gadget border box-drawing co-ordinates

mylpolnts&(0)=0

mylpoiats&(l}-0
mylpointafc<2)-70
raylpoints&(3)«0
mylpoints& ( 4 ) =70
mylpoints&(5)=l0

mylpoint s& {61-0
mylpoints*<7)=10
my 1 point ai. ( 8 ) »0
mylpointst(9)-0

• gadget border structure

WORD (ray lbrdrV»0) -0

W0RU<my lbrflr%+2 > *0

BYTE{mylbrdrVf4)*l

BYTE{mylbrdr^&+5)-0

BYTE {my lbrdr%+6 ) »0

BYTE(mylbrdr%+7)=5

LONG (my IbrdrV* 8 > -V t my lpoint Ml ( )

LONG(mylbrdr%+12 } -0

1 The Gadgets Message Structure

estrcpy<imsgl%, "PRESS ME")

BYTE<itextl%+0)-l
BYTE { itextl%+l } «0
BYTE(itextl\+2}-0
BYTE ( itextlVO ) -fcHA
WORD(itextl%+4)«4
WORD<itextl%+6}=2
LONG { i text 1%+ 8 } ■
LONG(itextl%+12)=imsgl%
LONG{ itextl%+16) «0

1 Create the Gadget Structure

LONC{ray lgad^+0 ) -0

W0RD<mylgad%+4 ) =40
WORD{raylgad%+6}»20
W0RD{mylgad%+8)»71
WORDdnylgadS+lO) -11
WORD{mylgad9&+12 } »0

WORn<mylg«d%+14)-2*l

word (mylgod 9 w-16 > =1
L0NG{mylgad'&+18) ■mylbrdrt

LONG(myigad q 6+22)-0

L0NG{mylgad%+26)»itextl\
LONGtmylgadH+30) »0
LONG{mylgad%+34>a0

WJRl){mylgacP&+38}»l
UMW{mylga<3fc+40)-0

! Left Edge

! Top Edge

! Front Pen

1 Back Pen

! Draw Mode (JAM1)

! Byte Count

! 5 co-ord array

! Pointer to Next Border

! The First Gadgets Text

Foreground Pen

Background Pen

JAM1

dunno

Left Edge

Top Edge

ITextFont (NOLL)

The Text to be Displayed

NextText (NULL)

RELVERIFY

t Pointer to next gadget

! LeftEdge

I TopEdge

! Width

1 Height

! GADGEHCOMP

1 GADHIMMEDIATE

! BOOLGADGET

t GadgetRender

I SelectRender

! The Text

! MutualExclude

1 Special Info (NONE)

! OadgetID (user defined)

! Pointer to UserData

1 8*cond Gadget

1 lfaia will be similar to 1st,
1 And activation mode (it wil

0strcpy<imsg2%, "OR ME")
BMOVE itextl%, itext2^,20
W0RD{itext2%+4 ) =16
LONG ( i text 2%+ 12 ) ■ imag2%

but with different text, position
1 Toggle ON/OFF with each press)
! The new text
! Copy from 1st Gadget
! Add the new Left Edge
! Change the Text to be J

Displayed

IA>NG{ray2gad*+26).itext2\ ! Add the new IntuiText

Structure
wORD{my2gadV38}-2 ! change the GadgetID

' now all we have to do is link the two together...

LONG(mylgad\r+0}=my2gad\

1 Open a couple of Windows to display the Gadgets'
idcmp%»fcH260 1 tell me if window-Close or

Gadget is UP or DOWN
OPENW tl.O,20,319,70,idcmp\,fcHF
TTTLEW #1, -Window #1 - with 2 Gadgets"

LOCATE 7,5

print "Two Boolean Gadgets*
PRINT

PRINT - Close thia window to quit"

idcapV&HO ! don't tell me anything from thia window

OPENW »2,321,20,319,100,idcmpV*HF

TITLEW #2, "Window #2 - IDCNP Data ■

* Add the two new Gadgets to Window 1

t red-AddQLiat (WINDOW(l) .mylgad*, -1, 2, 0)
-RefreehGadgets (raylgad*, WINDOW ( 1 ), )

PRINT "Gadget "jfred;": ";HEX$(mylgad*,6) ;" ";

PRUCT •Gadget ";frad*lj": ■*HEX$(my2gadV6)
PRINT "Window 1: -;HEX$(WINDOW(l) , 6) ;" "|

PRINT "Window 2: ";HBX$ (WINDOW* 2) ,6) ;" •;

ON MESSAGE GOSUB what message

wcloae ! -FALSE

REPEAT
SLEEP

until wcloae!

1 Clean-up Memory ■ BASIC doesn't aut
de-allocate on exiting

tically

f red«RemoveGList (WINDOW ( 1 ) , mylgad% 2 )

DELAY 1 ! 1 second delay to see CLOSE WINDOW message

CLOSEW #1

CLOSEW «2
END

PROCEDURE what message
LOCAL wadVwnr%,msg%,gadno*

wadV=MENU(9)
wnr%«WINDOW ( wad\)
megV>MENU(l)

IF Bag%»*H40 OR msg%-&H20 then

gadnoe - WORD { MENU ( 4 ) + 3 8 )

ENDTP

LOCATE 1,4

PRINT "Window: ";wnrV" ■

PRINT "ICDMP Message : ";HEX$(msg% ( 4); M "

SELECT msg\

CASE fcH20

PRINT "GADGET ";gadnc*;" DOWN "

IF (W0RD{my2gad%+12) AND *H80)-fcH80 THEN

PRINT "Gadget 2 is Selected"

! Window Address
! Window Number
t IDCMP- Flags

I Read which Gadget

PRINT "

ENDIF

CASE 4H40

PRINT "GADGET ";gadnofc;" UP ■

CASE *H200

PRINT "CLOSE WINDOW

wcloae 1 -TRUE
■■■hu m

RETURN

PROCEDURE strcpy(dstVsrc$)

1 thia procedure performs the same function as

' CHAR{dat\)«»rc$, which works fine in the interpreter

' but doesn't compile properly (for some reason...)

BMOVE mylgadVmy2gad%,44

woRD(my2gad\+4 ) -140

WORD{my2gad%+12)=l

WOWJ(inyZgaCI*+14)=«H100*2+l

! Copy new structure f)

1st Gadget
! Add the new Left Edge
1 draw a box when selected
! TOGGLESELECT + as gadl

src$-src$+CHR$(0)
adrV*V:src$

leng-LEN(srcS)
BMOVE adrVdat*, leng
RETURN

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

ft*

SLbjects

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!?i»yrofrAy

impYt6»A rwfA

Jjr^

TV(

drithimiws

5k~*i Aid

-V*T%-*»-<*/ -'CtV* t4' <♦<»«

SrLala.r%.J , Jct>-tl<i,ixd

Jia-lural Jl^t&yy

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E D U C AT I O

Those of you

who have never

seen or played a text adventure

may fool more than a little
pu&led by the descriptions of
Cavo Maze and Maths Dragon*.
ThAC« gnmAfi do not uee either
joystick or mouse. Instead, the
program is Instructed as to Its
next course of action by
commands typed at the prompt

(rather like thCU or Shell).

Adventure programs are used
extensively in schools, even for
the youngest children where the
teacher has to do the actual
typing after ascertaining from the

group what words should be

Input. Adventure games are all
about logical thought and
mapping techniques. Even with a
futuristic theme, play Is broadly
Along the lines of a treasure hunt
- Irresistible to all ages.

Recent years have seen the
text/graphics format evolve Into
a purely graphical environment
with games like Dungeon
Master, Bard's Tale and Eye of
the Beholder, but the central
theme of exploration and puzzle-
solving remains intact.

In text/graphics adventures,
the screen display generally
shows a picture of the player's
location together with a textual
description of what can be seen.
The description usually Includes

both the location itself and any

movable objects (those which

can be taken or interacted with).
In addition, possible exits may be
shown as north, south, up. down
and so on. Imagine trying to
describe a scene In a game such
as Dungeon Master to a blind
person and you get the Idea.
Adventurers are, on the
whole, very acquisitive persons

and will gather up anything they

come across In the hope that It
wW prove useful later. At the
time there may be no obvious
connection between an arrow, a
metal shovel and a hot ember,
but reach a wooden fort and the
mental connection is soon made.
The resultant string of
commands such as "carry the
ember on the shovel, go to the

BEGINNERS

Start here

BEGINNERS

castle, light
the arrow, Are

the arrow, wait for the gates to
be opened from inside" is the
adventure player's dream.

Young children, of course,
need rather more simple uses for
objects in their adventures. They
are perfectly happy to find a key
and expect it to open any locked
object. Older children will be
happy with triangular keys
opening only triangular doors,
while seasoned adventurers will
expect to collect the pertinent
key together with knowledge of a
magic spell before even
attempting to open a door
without setting off a booby trap.

While not normally classed
as 'educational', there are
several text adventures on the
market suitable both for children
and adult beginners. Early Level
9 titles are simple (with enough
devious twists to keep adults
guessing), as are some Infocom
titles. Unfortunately, both these
companies are now defunct, but
many discount software vendors
(particularly mall order) carry
their back catalogue titles.

Also suitable for children are
many of the Sierra titles. These
are more graphical, but still
demand a certain amount of
typing. Another series which this
time combines joystick dexterity
with logical skills are the budget
Dizzy games from Codemasters.
And don't forget Jungle Bungle in
the AMOS Ucenseware
collection. Adventures are
suitable as a group activity for
the whole family, and not
infrequently the younger family
members come up with the
answers to puzzles which have
stumped older members for days
on end.

As wrth arcade games, many
organisations and Individuals are
willing to offer anything from
cryptic hints to complete
solutions, so there's no need to
be stumped for ever. The
adventure scene Is far less
cliquish than the arcade scene,
and the fraternity are extremely
welcoming to beginners.

Education correspondent Pat
Winstanley once again goes back
to school to discover the best
educational software available.

iwo newcomers to the Amiga
scene appear this month,
with very different approaches
to the world of educational
software. Coombe Valley Software
has been producing text and
graphics adventures on the Atari ST
for some time now. and has recently
converted two of its games for the
Amiga using AMOS. More
conversions are promised - and very
welcome they are too.

Meanwhile a brand new
developer. Rainbow Education, has
emerged. The company's aim is to
challenge the Fun School series with
a wide range of kiddies' software at
budget prices. At the time of writing
two packages are available, and
another two should be due by the
time you read this.

This friendly character

appears in Shapes

and Colours -

he's a big

hit with

our Art

Editor,

tool

Rainbow Education exists as a
spin-off from a well established firm.
Its foray in to the educational market
is intended to show that good quality
children's software can be produced
and distributed at lower prices than
those charged by the majority of big
software houses.

With that in mind, Rainbow
looked at the Fun School series for a
full-priced model and
has attempted
to match the
quality of the
Europress
offering at a
lower (almost
PD) price. The Fun
School buster is Shapes
r and Colours, and alongside

that is the release of First
Letters. Both are intended for pre-
school children and both claim to

m*mi mmmU

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991 BW

E D U C AT I O

Shapes and colours

•ca casta

Shapes and Colours consists of six different games, all
accessible from an attractive opening screen (left).

itMMfl U

(MiMiMd frftm poa*

prepare toddlers for the rigours of
the National Curriculum.

As first attempts. Doth programs

aro good enough to take their place

in the educational software scene.

but somehow lack the polish and
attention to detail of some full-priced
offerings. However. I feel that
Rainbow Education should De roundly
applauded for its early efforts -
uopeulally with the prices. The

publisher is also looking for
programmers to do conversion work.
Both these packages are written with
AMOS and their ST counterparts in
ST05. so give Rainbow a ring if you
can help.

FIRST LETTERS

Preschool/Infant

Imagine that you have a house
consisting of ten rooms plus a
garage and garden (you should be so
lucky). Then imagine that each room
has been infested with a variety of
objects, animate and inanimate. So
far so good - but what if you have to
identify each object and give each
one its initial letter? Not such an
easy task if you haven't even started

school yet.

Each room is shown as a scene
with ten objects. The objects to be
named are animated in turn. As each
object is animated the child must
click on the initial letter of the object

using either the keyboard or the
mouse. Unfortunately, some objects
are decidedly ambiguous. Thus the
animation in the bath is the water
level rising - so the tester clicked on
W for water. Wrong! It should have
been B for bath, and water was not
allowed. Similarly, a hand was
correctly chosen as H but the next
screen showed a similar picture
which required A for arm.

My seven year-old found some of
the objects easy to both identify and
name with their initial letters.
However, many objects either defied
description or were identified with
the incorrect (although synonymous)
name and hence were marked
incorrectly. Thus P for pan was
wrong - it should have been F for
frying pan.

While it is good to see
excellent and imaginative
animation. I feel that the
designers have tended to forget
their prime purpose - education.
As it stands the program is fun and
easy to use. but most children will
need a good deal of help. Although
all the words used in each room are
listed both in the instructions and as
an option on the screen via the
[Help] key. no readers and those just
beginning to read may not recognise
the words, and so will need an adult
to assist in understanding, rather
than in clicking the right letter.

RATINGS

Educational

Value

Ease

of Use

Flexibility

Addiction

Overall
Value

n 3

Gave Maze

Maths Dragons

Shapes & Colours
First Letters

Successful educational programs, especially those Intended for children,
need to combine fun with learning. A good educational rating combined
with addlctlveness shows a well-balanced and valuable resource. Other
ratings shown here affect the user-frlendllness of the product, reflecting
the hassle -factor involved.

Another point is that there is no
provision for older children to try
spelling the objects' names. This
rather limits the usefulness of the
program, since with regular use even
younger children will soon learn the
object letters by rote.

In all, First Letters is a good
attempt, but the graphics are rather
too ambiguous for both the intended
age group and the next one up.

Hopefully the

First Letters

requires the user to click
on a letter representing the
animated character.

programmers will take note of
criticism and Incorporate suggestions
from end-users into their next
products. Meanwhile, a good deal of
parental cooperation is required to
get the most from this product but
it's still good value at the price.

SHAPES AND COLOURS

Preschool

Many of the most successful

software packages include a
colourful character with whom the
kids can identify across modules.
Shapes and Colours is no exception
- the character in question is Bobby
the clown. Fortunately Rainbow has
avoided the standard drawback of
making failure more satisfying to the

child than success - in fact the
company has fallen over backwards
to avoid the problem; well done.

Shapes and Colours consists of
six games intended to introduce pre-
schoolers to just those concepts,
and does so admirably well. Like the
Fun School series, the opening

screen displays pictures of each of
the six available games, any one of
which can be selected by mouse.
Some of the individual games can be
escaped from during play, but not all
- sometimes a little irritating when
you realise that you have chosen the
wrong option and have to either play
the game all the way through or re-
boot. All the games except Painting
and the Shape Game offer three
levels of difficulty.

Snap is a simple game which
merely asks the child to say whether
two shapes shown are the same.
After five correct answers the child is
moved to the next level of proficiency
and given three shapes to check.

Painting allows the child to
colour in several predefined pictures.
Unfortunately it doesn't allow either
the saving of masterpieces or
loading new ones from other paint
packages. The palette can't be
changed either, which is a shame.

Odd One Out is for children
coming to grips with working out and
recognising shapes. It's simple yet
demanding for youngsters who are
beginning to develop spatial co-
ordination skills.

Big and Small
shows Bobby directing
the child to words
(either big or small) and
then asking the child to
choose the relevant
picture from several
shown.

Sefs offers a mixed bag
of pictures at the bottom
of the screen. The child's
task is to move each picture
to the correct area in the
upper half of the screen so
that they are sorted into the
correct groups. Each completed
screen sees Bobby give the child a
giant thumbs-up and adds a piece to
the bonus screen jigsaw. Once the
jigsaw is completed the bonus
screen animates to activate a
Mousetrap-style contraption,
culminating in Bobby being woken up
by a bucket of water - very satisfying
for young children.

Shape Game appears to be
either something of an afterthought
or a brainstorm on the the part of the
educational advisor. The game is
totally random and features a
spinning arrow which, at each spin,
points to a different player's counter.
Each time the pointer lands on a
counter that player 'gets one home'.
The winner is the first with four
counters home.

IT'S ALL AN ADVENTURE

Although used regularly in schools,
the text adventure format has been
strangely ignored in the home
education market. This is a great
shame, since the format itself
encourages reading and spelling.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

E D U C AT I O

while the puzzles set in the
adventure can be anything from

general knowledge to pure maths.

The two Coombe Valley games
reviGWGd here were originally written

on the ST using STAC and hove been

converted to AMOS for the Amiga -

so they appear almost identical to

the ST versions on screen. While
adequate for the job. AMOS is a bit
uf a Ulna for me non-programmer.

who might be better off with Hatrack

//- which is the most user friendly

adventure writing system I have seen

on any computer (it'5 availaDle from
Heyley Software for £29.95; ring for

further details on 001-427 2901).
Unfortunately it doesn't as yet
support graphics, but there is talh
that this might be remedied if
enough people want the extra
facilities to be added.

Ian Lycett-King, an ex teacher, is
the- brain behind Coombe Valley
Software and has produced several

mind boggling programs for the ST f

now being converted to the Amiga.

The following are the first two
conversions.

CAVE MAZE

Primary/Early Senior

Intended for primary
and lower secondary
children, this game is a
standard text/graphics
adventure which
encourages logical
thinking and planning.

The game is set on a
holiday island where a baby
dragon has been lost. On
stumbling across the
dragon, you are informed that
it has a map in its lunchbox -
but the lunchbox is lost. Your

task is to retrieve the lunchbox and

unlock it. Only after doing so will you
hr» flhlp to feed the baby dragon and
guide it home. Meanwhile, the

unfortunate creature is lost and
hungry - and touchy with it.

On loading, a copy of the
dragon's map is shown on-screen.

It*c worth making a note of this at

once since you won't get to see it
again until the lunchbox is unlocked.
The game uses basic adventure
commands {which must be typed)

cueh as get, drop, inventory, look

and so on. and incorporates a variety
of objects to be manipulated or used
03 maze marhers. Adept adventurers
will find the command structure a

Utile primitive. Out it is ideal for kids.
A phrase such as 'get sweets"
needs to be typed as two separate
commands, the second half being
prompted as a response to the first.
However, this is fine for younger
children who need such a lot of
concentration to type commands with
the correct spelling that they are
liable to only be able to handle one
word at a time anyway.

in the nicltUe
the train set

aying on its

Kits are north, south/

lh«t now ?

of the i-uom. The box which
should be in is ei\plv and

side under the table.

west.

east and

Maths Dragons pits the player against a group of benign,
numerate dragons. Where's Puff when we need him?

As play progresses, objects are
encountered. The automatic
adventuring response is to collect
everything and worry later whether it
might be of use. but a strict limit is
placed on the number of objects
which may be carried, so careful
choices are required. Later in the
game a rather nasty maze is
encountered, which contains
characters who want a toll to allow
passage. Each

Cave Maze Is a text
and graphics adventure which
encourages logical thinking.

requires something different, such as
the dog which needs something to
occupy him and the troll who fancies
something squashy or squelchy. By
this means the child is forced to
select carried objects carefully to
prevent a passage being closed due
to lack of further suitable objects.

The game provides a fine test of
logic in deciding where best to use
different objects, and good practice
in map-making. In addition, close
reading attention is needed to follow

on-screen instructions and location
descriptions. All in all. a fine effort
and a pleasant change from all the
mouse- and joystick-controlled games
which abound.

MATHS DRAGONS

Primary/Early Senior

This has to be an all-time favourite
with my kids. Set the seven year-old
going and he'll monopolise the
computer for hours. Despite his
appalling reading and even worse
spelling there's something about this
game which totally grabs him (and
me, I might add).

Again we have a text/graphics
adventure format. This time the
scenario is that while spending the
day in the local dragon's lair the
baby dragon has scattered all the
pieces of your train set. Your task
is to wander through the lair

collecting the pieces. Having

gathered the bits you must then
rebuild the track. However, while the
lair's inhabitants are friendly, the
adults definitely espouse education
as a prime virtue in both young
dragons and young humans. At
random but fairly regular intervals in
your wanderings you will encounter
adult dragons. While they are kindly
souls, they do insist that you answer
a sum before continuing on your way.
Get the answer wrong and some of
your loot will be confiscated and
redistributed among the rooms of the
lair, for you to collect again.

As with Cave Maze, mapping and
direction finding is a central theme
but this time, instead of collecting
objects to help you past obstacles,
the theme is arithmetic puzzles. The

standard and content of proffered
sums can be set at the start of the
game. Options range from simple to
fiendish (should that be draconian?)
and include addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division. The size
of the numbers used in the sums
can also be set, thus making the
game suitable for both younger and
older children.

Despite text entry being required,
only a few words such as 'get' and
'drop' need to be spelled from
memory. Object names such as
'engine' and 'signalbox' remain on
the screen for the child to copy. I
can't recommend this game too
highly. It has all the elements that
kids enjoy, it isn't too expensive and
it has excellent educational content.
Well done Coombe Valley. ( ^

ooooooooo

SHOPPING LIST

Cave Maze

Maths Dragons

Available from
Coombe Valley Software
18 Nelson Close
Teignmouth
DevonTQ14 9NH
« 0626 779695

Shapes and Colours

First Letters „„„™

....£12.00
.£12.00

,..£7.99

* T 7

Available from

Rainbow educational

Softwore

67 SidwellStree, Exeter EX4 6PH /

tr 0392 77369/413104 \/

EDUCATIONAL CONTENT

^ 1

Maths

English

Science

Reflex

Logic

Fact

Revision

Cave Maze

Maths Dragons

Shapes & Colours

First Letters

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

A1500 from£625!

PHee* Include VAT, delivery A warranty.

Pitatt add Lis for ovtrniom delivery.

All svsiimi an lasted before despatch
On-site maintenance option*

AmlQi A3000/100. 2SMh2 6MB £2995

Amiga 4300050 25Mh2 3MB £2795

Amiga A1S00 latest UK model £625

lAmlgeAlWO as above £675

plus DPatno. Works Piarjnum etc

iAmtgaAiSOOwimA2oe8PC-KT £$25
bodge, board & 5T daK drive

I Amiga AlS00wnhA20fli and £1049
90MB Quantum iims auiQbooi hard drsk

| ■■■ AisOO * yr Bridga- Board * 20MB autoboot hard disk £1095! |

PERIPHERALS

■ A2C30 card 2SMHz/Fpu/4MB £ 1 295

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■ RAM tor above, per 2MB ... £72

■ Quantum ProDrive WWB IteM C275

■ Quantum ProOrlve 'OOMB llrm £425

■ Quantum ProOrlva 200MB lima £725

■ A2OT1 card lor ProOrrw 2MB OK £169

| RAM tor above per MB (max 2MB) £36

■ txtamai Orlva unit for ProOnva £95

KAM lor A590. 60ns. per MB . £36

KC5 PC Poww Board - £220

SupraModem 2400 Have*/ AA/AD £ 1 1 5

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Mu III Scan monitor 14" i024k76S £395

A3320 Display Enhancer (or above£249

HP DeekJet SOO inkjet. 300 dpi £445

MP PaintJet colour inkjet 180 dpi £845

Randal* 8402 Genlock _ £159

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| Randal* Pro Genlock ... £575

iColorBursl 24-Mcard £569

I SuperPle Genlock, N- res Digr&sor £495

I SketchMaster 18x12 dwg. tablet. £495
1000 Ipi. with ttytue & 4-buBon cursor

A15Q0 with 50MB Quantum autoboot hard disk £1049!

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Disk recovery and performance oporr*sat»n Mm
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£89 13 ■ Pagasetter 2 49 as

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TV*Tatrt ProfaaaaiaMuJ v? LaiaMi fuH-t#ature vidaso trier tnckidaM Zuma fonts 79 95

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The Art Department vi 2 £54 95 ■ Dlgtpalnt 3 59 ss

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40 Disks ♦ 100 cap box £21.99 200 Disks ♦ 2 x 200 cap box£67.99

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DATAPLEX
COMPUTERS LTD.

129 Bath Road, 19 High Street,

Slough, Old Town,

Berkshire, Swindon,

SL1 3UW Wilts

Tel: 0753 535557 Tel: 0793 488448

AMIGA A500
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Amiga A500 Screen Gems +

1 Meg Pack £309

Amiga A500 Screen Gems Pack * tree

disks + 10 extra games pack £345

Amiga A500 1 Meg Class

of 90s (First Steps) £369

CARTOON CLASSIC PACK

Amiga A500 including 1 Meg Ram +
FREE 10 blank disks, mouse mat

£309

(Software includes Lemmings, The

Simpsons v Space Mutant. Captain

Planet. Deluxe Paint 3)

A1500E549

A1500 Base plus software .£549.00
A 1500 ♦ Philips CM8833 Mk2

Colour Monitor £725.00

A1500 + Commodore 1084S
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1 Meg 3.5" internal £49

1 Meg 3.5" external (Cumana)....£60
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showroom

open:
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£l.SO
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Prices
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Joystick CIO

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Naksha Mouse plus Operation SteaKh £24 00

INTRODUCTORY OFFER

Screen Filter lor your monitors.

Protect those precious eyes CI 5

(Woven nylon fibre, flare reduction 90%,

cuts ultraviolet reflection by 85%)

MONITORS

Philips CM8833 MK II Colour Monitor *
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Slay LCiO Mono £125

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AH above come complete wtn leads

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(PROTAR)

These lard drives come with a 1 yew replacement
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™ £235 00

20Mb Eternal
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160Mb External £799 00

All disks come complet* with software

PUBLIC DOMAI

wapping information
between computers can be
tneky - especially when the
two machines have
completely incompatible disk

formats. As a result of ine enormous
nodularity of the iBM-comnaiioie PC.
almost all of the major home
computers have the facility to read
PC Uiaha. Therefore if you need to
transfer files between the Amiga. ST.
Archimedes, Macintosh and of
course trie PC the chances are that
you will be able to do so by putting
the filca on a PC-format dish.

Getting your Amiga to use PC
di»Ke is not that much of a problem,

thanks to a set of programs in the
public domain called the MessyDOS

File dysiem handler, or MSM for
short. MSH is written by Olaf Seibert,

and persuades your Amiga to use
IBM PC aisKs as though tney were
real Amiga disks. However, although
MessyDOS is one of the most useful
public domain programs that is
available, it is unfortunately also one
of the least user-friendly. The manual
files which come along with the utility
are so full of technical details that it
is extremely difficult to find the basic
information needed to make the
thing work properly. I am a member
of a world wide e-mail list called Info-
Amiga and lately it has been full of
people seeking help because they
could not get MessyDOS to work
correctly. Because there is clearly a
problem with understanding the
program, therefore. I wrote this

eimplo tutorial on how to set Up

MessyDOS on your boot disk and

JARGO

BUSTING

DOS - Short for Disk Operating
System. DOS is the
firmware which allows the
Amiga to access disks.

IBM PC - The IBM PC and its
clones form the most
popular computer system
in the world. If there's a
computer in an office, the
chances are that it's a
PC-compatible machine.
Although many places
use true IBM machines.
the vast majority use
tnird-party imitations,
known as 'clones'.

Michael Lazarou looks at now to
get the best out of MessyDOS, a
utility for reading PC-formatted
disks on your Amiga

how to use it to read and write to
standard double-sided 80-track IBM
PC disks.

WHERE TO GET IT?

Getting hold of MessyDOS should be
no problem. Any half-decent PD
library should stock it. Make sure
that you get version 1.3 or higher, as
early versions don't work very well.
Some libraries may give you a copy
of MessyDOS ready-installed on a
Workbench disk, but you may have to
install it yourself - if you download it
from a bulletin board, for example.

INSTALLING MESSYDOS

Installing MessyDOS is quite simple
and mainly involves the transfer of
files on to your boot disk.
Unfortunately the system does not
come with an automatic installation
script, so the files must be
transferred manually by the user.
First of all. copy the commands DIE.
IGNORE and MESSYFMT to the C
directory. Then copy the device
handler 'messydisk. device' to the
'DEVS' directory, and the file system
handler MessyFileSytem' to the 'L*
directory. You will also need
'arp. library' version 1.3 or above in
the LIBS directory. The version of
MessyDOS I received did not come
with the arp.library on it. but the
library is readily available and if you
have collected any PD software at all
then you probably have it on one of
the PD disks already.

The only slightly tricky bit of
installation is changing the mountlist
in the DEVS directory. Below is a
sample mountlist entry to turn unit 1
into a MessyDOS drive. Use any text
editor to add it to your mountlist. For
It to work you must use the
Workbench 1.3 or above version of
the MOUNT command. For
Workbench 1.2. change 'FileSystem'
to 'Handler'.

* An example mountlist entry

* to turn unit 1 Into an

* 80 -track IBM drive
*/

MSI: FileSystem = J

L : MessyFileSystem

Device =
DEVS imessydisk. device
Unit - 1
Flags ■

LowCyl - ; HighCyl ■ 79
Reserved =
Surfaces ■ 2
BlockaPerTracX ■ 9
Buffers - 5
DosType ■ 1
BufMemType = 1
BootPri -
Stacksize = 3072
priority ■ 9
GlobVec ■ -1
Mount ■ 1

Please note that this example
mountlist is for version 1.3 of
MessyDOS; earlier versions use a
slightly different mountlist. and you
should see the accompanying
manual files of your version for the
relevant details.

The new device name is MSI:
and can be used just as you would
use DF1:. You don't have to use the
name MSI: if you don't want to - any
name you like will do. If you wish to
use drive instead of drive 1 then
just change the unit number in the
mountlist to 0. Unfortunately, the file

system handler MessyRleSystem is
not 'pure*. This means that if you
wish to have two drives operating as
MessyDOS drives then you really
ought to have two copies of the
MessyFileSystem: MessyRieSystemO
and MessyFileSysteml. for example.
Although. I have run both drives
and 1 with the same file system with
no problems, don't be surprised if
the machine suddenly Gurus for no
apparent reason if you do this.

USING THE SYSTEM

The system is now fully installed, but
before you can use MessyDOS disks
the device has to be mounted. You
may prefer to add this to your
Startup-sequence, so that the
operation is performed automatically.

To mount MessyDOS, type the
following at the CLI (or add it to your
Startup- sequence):

> MOUNT MSI:

You can now use MSI: just like a
normal drive. All the normal
commands such as DIR. LIST. INFO
and CD will work with the device, and
you can create and read files just as
though you were using an Amiga
disk. In earlier versions of
MessyDOS, DIR and LIST did not
work properly - they thought that all
files were directories - but this has
been fixed in version 1.3. And just to
make things even more confusing,
the 1.3 Arp versions of LIST and DIR
worked with earlier versions of
MessyDOS.

mmmn

What is DOS,
exactly?

BEGINNERS

'START HERE

DOS stands for Disk Operating
System, and is a piece of
firmware which allows a computer
to access floppy and hard disks.
Almost all computers have
different DOSses. which means
that it Is quite difficult - and
sometimes impossible - to take
disks created on one computer
and use them on another.

So what does MessyDOS do?

MessyDOS is a patch' which
fools the Amiga into reading IBM
PC-compatible disks. So any disk

which was
created on an
IBM PC should be readable by the
Amiga. But do remember that
MessyDOS doesn't allow PC
programs to run on the Amiga -
it's only data flies which will be
transferrabJe. And even then,
you'll have to have an Amiga
program which is capable of
understanding the data. Text flies
saved as plain ASCII, for instance,
should be readable by just about
any word processor, but data
saved in a program's native file
format is unlikely to be usable on
the Amiga without a great deal of
messing around.

AMIGA SHOPPER •ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

PUBLIC DOMAI

(gn1lnuedliompage9!

FORMAT DIFFERENCES

There are a couple of differences
between the MessyDOS file system
and the AmigaDOS file system. The
moM olivlous difference Is In Ihe
naming of files. MessyDOS uses
standard IDM filenames, which are
an 8-character base name with a 3-
cnaracier extension separated oy a

full elop (period'). There is also a
restriction to the characters that you
may vsq in filenames. Basically you
are limited to the upper-case letters
A 2, digits 9, and most
punctuation' characters except

space * 9 , < » / «» I , : and V If an

illegal file name is passed to
MessyDOS then it will try to map the
name to one that is allowed. For
example, lower-case letters are
converted to upper-case. As only 3-
character extensions are allowed,

'.info' files are illegal MessyDOS file
names. Filenotes are not allowed on

MessyDOS disks either

THE COMMANDS

DIE is used to unload MessyDOS

when you no longer require it. This

means that you can claim back

about 30K of memory if you get short
of RAM during a session. This is
done by typing DIE <device> at the

CLI. For example. DIE MSI: will free
the space used by the code for
MSI:. The device is still mounted,
though, and MSI: can be accessed
by a simple CD command. DIE
should not be used if any program
expects the device to be there. For
example, killing MSI: while it is the
current directory is not
recommended. The author of the
system does not recommend using
DIE when Workbench is loaded.

You can format your own
MessyDOS disks using the supplied
command MESSYFMT. This program
is daunting, to say the least, so you
may prefer to use a PC to format
your disks before you use them on
your Amiga.

The usage of the command is:

mesByfmt <unitnr> <device>

The <device> name is optional and
defaults to 'messydisk.device'. For
example. MESSYFMT MSI:

MESSYFMT now swamps you
with a mass of questions to
determine exactly how you want to
format the disk. As long as you want
a standard, double-sided 80-track
IBM disk then you don't have to
worry about most of them, as that is
the default. Just keep pressing

<Return> until asked whether you
want to format the whole disk. Enter
1 and then enter 42 to show that you
are still awake and know what you
are doing. The disk will then be
formatted. It is possible to just
format the boot block and root
directory - which performs a similar
job to the AmigaDOS FORMAT
QUICK' option, but for a PC disk.

This is the list of questions that
MESSYFMT will ask you:

Bytes per sector? [512]
Sectors per track? [9]
Number of sides? [2]
Starting cylinder? [0]
Number of cylinders? [80]
Sectors per cluster? [2]
Bootsectors? [1]
Number of FAT copies? [2]
Root directory entries? [112]
Total number of sectors? J

[1440]

Media byte? [249]
Sectors per FAT? [3]
Number of hidden sectors? [0]
Format whole disk (enter J
D? [0] 1

Are you sure? (enter 42)7 J
[0] 42

The newly-formatted disk will have no
name at this time, and will show up

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on Workbench as "Unnamed". The
disk can be named using the
standard AmigaDOS 'relabel'
command. MESSYFMT can be used
to create any IBM format that you will
need. A single-sided disk can be
formatted, for example, by changing
the number of sides to 1. Don't
forget to alter the mountlist to take
account of any alterations, though.
IGNORE is a program which is
supposed to suppress the CRC
check in any currently open unit. It is
used as:

ignore <unitnr> <YES/NO>

If you only give the unit number,
IGNORE will output either Yes or No.
reflecting whether CRC mismatches
are currently being ignored. This
command can be useful when you
wish to recover data from a damaged
or dodgy disk. Sometimes text files
may be usable even if there are a
few errors in them.

DUAL DRIVES

One of the strange things about
MessyDOS is that it works in parallel
to AmigaDOS. When a disk is
inserted in a drive, the Amiga file
system looks at it first to see
whether it is a valid Amiga disk. If it
says that it isn't then MessyDOS
takes over and has a go. If the Amiga
file system says yes then MessyDOS
ignores the disk completely. This
means that a drive can be two drives
at once(!). You can access both DF1:
and MSI: at the same time, for
example. So by changing disks a
couple of times when necessary you
can keep your two Amiga drives and
have a PC drive as well.

DOING THE BIZ

Overall. MessyDOS is a very solid
system, by which I mean that it is
not likely to 'Guru' just because you
sneezed too hard - unlike a lot of PD
software about. Most file requesters
should allow you to access
MessyDOS devices as legal drives;
those using isup. library and
req. library, for instance, will work
with no problems. The system
generally performs extremely welt.
although it is a bit slow and
transferring large files can take quite
a long time. Another thing to look out
for is that when Workbench is loaded
there are two icons for a MessyDOS
disk instead of one. This is because
both the Amiga system and
MessyDOS give an icon to the disk.
Because the Amiga file system does
not understand the format, it gives
the disk the name DF1:BAD.

Hopefully you should now be able
to use the system with no problems.
If you wish to contact me for more
information, you can e-mail me on
Internet as username
michaell@>cogs. susx.ac.uk. gj^

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

Yeah, we play games
but we take 'em seriously!

Want to know a secret?

We blow the lid on the tricks and techniques
that are used to create into a game
with top-class graphics

Make a hard decision!

We put A500 hard drives to the test and

help you decide which to buy

Are you making the
most of your machine?

Harness the hidden power of
CLI with our new Beginners' series

Does it feel real?

Find out what the experts think of sims

Why are you STILL
using a mouse?

How an alternative input device
can improve your work

PLUS latest news of the Amiga scene (including an in-depth report on the upcoming World of
Commodore show), the best reviews of everything that's new in games, serious software, hardware and PD
software, and lashings of advice and help in our Workbench and Gamebusters sections.

Which is what makes Amiga Format the most exciting mix of everything for the Amiga, every month.
Don't miss it!

SCHIZOPHRENIA UNLEASHED!
ISSUE 28 ON SALE THURSDAY OCTOBER 10TH £2.95

The world's best-selling Amiga magazine*
Britain's best-selling home computer magazine 1 K&

Reviews that the computer industry trusts the best 2 BK

1 ABC aucmed circulation II 5, i SB Ja»v j V n 1991
2 V xed No I magazine aiding slocking decnrans. Computer Trade WeeUy Dealer Survey 1 99 1

1M1-

T & DELIVERY •

Evesham Hi<resl

• ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT & DELIVER

I WW

PRICES INC.DELIVERY & VAT @ 1 7.5%

Express Courier Delivery :
(UK Mainland Only) £6.50 Extra

BUY WITH CONFIDENCE from one of the longvftt etlabllthtd

compantes m fheir field, with a reputation fo# good t#rvic*

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Our fully equipped Workshop erttblei us lo carry oul almoal

any repair on our premice* We (eel ture that you won I be

disappointed tl you choose Fveaham Micro*

HOW TO ORDER

Call us now on

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Lines open Monday - Saturday.
9 OOam - 5 30pm

flf-r. Send Cheque, Postal Order or

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Unit 9, St Richards Rd.

Evesham, Worcs

WR1 1 6XJ

ACCESS /VISA

Cards Welcome

Government. Education & PLC orders welcome

Same day despatch whenever possible
Express Courier delivery (UK Mainland only) C6. 50 extra

Please note that 5 working days must be allowed for
personal cheque clearance.

Mail Order Fax: 0386-765354

Unrt 9 St Richards Road, Evesham
Worcestershire WR11 6XJ

V 0386 765 180

»0« 0386?o5354
Open Mon-Sal 9 00 - 5 30

5 Glisson Rd. Cambridge CB1 2HA
It 0223 323898

>a* 0223 32WS3

OoenMon-Fri.9 30-6 00&Sat 030530

Corporate Soles Dept • QMaeo*6»

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF

AOORESS OF OUR BIRMINGHAM

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251-255 MOSELEY ROAD.
HIGHGATE, BIRMINGHAM B12 0EA

IT 02 1 458 4564

fox 021433 3825
Open Mon-Scrt., 9 00-5 30 • Easy Parking

TECHNICAL
SUPPORT

^0386-40303

Monday to Friday. 10.00 • 5.30

12 MONTHS WARRANTY
ON ALL PRODUCTS

AMfctaftcofTrtatt^tfgoinQtQprKs* Atf goods sifrgcf icivjriJsWy

3 A" Track Display Drive

High Quality dOuDW-S-Oed 3 5' floppy
d"ve offering the full

880K formatted capacity

per 3 5' *sk Features a

speoa' LED display

wt>«n accurately shows the

current track be<ng accessed

dunng any disk drive

activity NEW LOW PRICE'

ONLY £64.95

PRICE

_ BREAKTHROUGH!

AT LAST... the chance to buy Quality,

High Capacity Hard Disk Systems for the

Amiga 500 at realistically low pricesl

NEC SCSI HARD DISK UECHANJSMS for optimum ptrtormwncm
Jhmm Accms Tim»> & Autopartang

| IncludM rtl own DEDICATED PSU CBM raconvn#n« agamd jm of

Hard D*»k» wrthout ind*p*ft<J#fit pow»r supply
) QUIET., tales! lechnology dnves run cool no Fan o naadad 1
| Opcion tof up to 4MB KMittonaltMy RAM EXPANSION using SIMMS
| GAME SwrTCM attows Ganges to M badod *rflhoui dieKonnadon
, Include* SCSI THROUQHPORT at rear to/ lunhor eipanston
High quality m*iai casing colour matched to If* Am<^ SOO
InciudM MRBACKUP PRO js *«*Ji as Co^guralKXYFcrfrr^i v*i* 4 ta

40Mb MODEL ONLY £ 299
1 00Mb MODEL ONLY £ 449

7Mb RAM Version: ADO CIO - 4Mb RAM Version: ADD CI 60

3/ 2 " EXTERNAL FLOPPY DRIVES

AMAZING LOW PRICE I

£51.99

^including VAT & delivery

• Very quiet

• Slimline design

• Suits any Amiga

• Cooling Vents

• Sleek, high quality metal casing

• Quality Citizen/Sony drive mechanism

• On / Off switch on rear of drive

• Full 880K Formatted Capacity

• Long reach connection cable

Also available:

5.2S" External Drive

40/80 Track Switchable

Only £99.00 inc.VAT/dehvery

AMIGA A500 SOLDERLESS RAM UPGRADES

512K RAM Expansion

also available without

clock for only :

512K

RAM/CLOCK
UPGRADE

> Direct replacement for the A501 expansion Convenient On / Off
Memory Switch j Auto-recharging battery backed Real-Time Clock -j
Compact Unit Size : Ultra-neat design ..- Only 4 low power FASTRAMs

T.5MB RAM BOARD

Fully populated board Increases total RAM in A500 to 2Mb ! .- Plugs

into trapdoor area, & connects to GARY chip j Includes battery
backed real-time Clock - Socketed RAM ICi on 512K ' 1Mb Versions

Unpopulated RAM board with clock £ 34.95

RAM Board with 512K FASTRAM installed ... £ 54.95
RAM Board with 1Mb FASTRAM installed E 69.95

;

NB The enpansKxi board

'©Quir« Kictistart l 3 lo

operate -

Ktdujtat 1.3 upgrade

RAM Board with 1.5Mb FASTRAM installed £ 79 00 ava.iawe i'Cn ui'0'C?9 9$

NEWI

iimillUIL..

MEGABOARD' | ONLY

£59.95

Conr«cHtoyour5l4WR*VA
upgrade to 91VQ K5MB

With our MEGABOARD. you can further expand
your A 500 s memory to a total of 2Mb without
disposing of your existing 51 2K upgrade (must be
4 x RAM-chip type, or not exceeding 9cm in length)

ME GABOARO ne«OS K <ktlart 1 3

to operate (K<kstan 1 3 upgrade

averfaft* from us to* £29 95)

*utaW»on reoj-re* connection to

ft*GARYcr>*© Easy lo lotto*

m&iruciiont provided

• AX3Ama y iva lamiNi swud nv

^•J>tuujet(S9A3

• AMAma

samDN

EHE

77 V

ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT & DELIVERY

Evesham Micro?

• ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT & DELIVERY •

7Y-FI amplified stereo

REALISE THE TRUE
SOUND POTENTIAL

OF YOUR AMIGA

WITH THIS PAIR OF

FULL RANGE

SPEAKERS !

Vour Amiga produces f n# QueMy hi-fi tfareo found
Erwv qui— y » *T »c kwxJ rsprotfuciic^ ID n« 'utf

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fyVrjrn 1 TeAtur^s ffctt+r polled iptakar d»s»gr wit* 3
uperjii dnven n each unit end rctrporaiat e
bu* n amptf**r wfb ec»ustat>* vo»uma control Runs
from PSU iwppbed) or frcm tuflanas (not mcJudad)
Sp+skmt Dimensions *?4*jr93jrf,?5rrirri {HmWeD)

ONLY
£39.95

NEW! TOP VALUE 400dpi
HANDY SCANNER

QUALITY SCANNING - AT
THE RIGHT PRICE !

Representing outstanding value
for money, this package
comb* net fop Quality scanning
hardware with the distinctively
powerful DAATASCAN PROFESSIONAL

Al * g**u*nm 400dr> ■t*r»*i**ifl rvoctfufto" ^«

produoaa fruV aupartj que**y scans Has a *uii »0S/rw, tcann^g

»wm vj'4D*9 ongninesi tonro anrj »00 - fflO 300 aooopt resoJuton

Ptoi«n#rf n«hMmtl *u^ f ^ #<VtCv^ H^rt 4 W% 'w S*-e ■<*'

^ •xff^e* ^e «n ex ** wpto6*

i^uiiW g'«v w^ies P*c*yte*

ONLY £119.99

GOLDEN IMAGE HANDY
SCANNER & TOUCH-UP

OjtsU^d^ 3l-*i% ereeJeri va'ue ** *-or*y N

packaga *< jom * i0CM0Odf> ica*** wm cut*' opaona

plus tht aT^^ngpy powar+ui TOUCH UP wttware

pacuge wnc* rjrvsa ine acan"e' d*9dV Scanner

includes vewing «>roow I oeckig^r ** accurate

team every orr*e Scan a<ff*a* i n» an or g'ey

ji inujgaft up to 400dp> Many mage

, ^^0L a^ncamt^t & spec.a a"!*:* ava^Ov

^^^^ ,f o** *^»n TouctvUp * aewWe

inveaimert for Oaitlop PwtMning worv

ONLY £145.00

TRUEMOUSE

>>s

WE GUARANTEE that this It iht
tmoothtst. mott rttponslva and
•ccuritt rapiKtmtnl moult you

can buy for tht Amiga ExcaUant
partem ■ net. •mtnng low pnet I

C1"7 QC SATISFACTION

*~ i .^n/ guaranteed

GOLDEN IMAGE OPTICAL MOUSE An,ga ST compel** ■
• ««'i«nt favo:*o«--«y iu«'ec NEW LOW PRICE' £ 2900

ROCGEN GENLOCK

VOU WILL HAVE TO PAt AT
LEASTTHKl AS MUCH

MONEY to obtain a a*m*Ler

level ol quality, (unction

and sophistication oflered

by our new GENLOCK

adapter, compatible to all

Amiga* ' Special features include

(he at-itty to racord grapNtt A

animalHX^s on video raccyders and

overlay graphic and to*l onto video.

Capable ol smooth and slatxe lading and

overlaying ett«ts *r^ special tuning knob

ONLY £114.99

PHILIPS 1 5" TV/MONITOR

wrm n% ctedtctfad *^onor mput ihia modal

oombaws the adwitagts of a *ugh ojji I *r rwejrjiur*

rteofcjtloft colour monitor wfth tna corvanltnce o*

rtmcrta control Tt*Ha«t TV . at m aiceilani km price I

NEW Varslon Jeaturee Oart glaaa acrten Tor Improved

contrast pfcjt fvj»i range >*t> loaaker sound output

£269.00

Including VAT,

dtlivtry ft cabi«

I Philip* CM 8633 Mk.ll including cable

£239 00

A590 ADD-ON HARD DRIVES

ASS0 OWNERS' Expand your nartj qHa sioraga tunher anrh one ot our add<r
ajrtemrfy cased SCSI Hard Drives «rrih 25ms autopervjngNtC rfwjcfwjnumt and
■apaiala poarar suppty Ptugs »«o the socnet providad on the rear o* ihe A590 unit
Enamel 40Mb SCSI Drive cased *rth PSU

10 directty add-on to the Commotio'* A590 C 299 00

EHernal 100Mb SCSI Drive caswl with PSU C 4i9 00

AMIGA SPECIAL DEALS Q

A500 CARTOON CLASSICS PACK

KSSLtO

Top Value Starter Pack includes ;

- Amiga 500 with 1Mb RAM and 1Mb Drive
TV Modulator. Mouse. Kickstart 1.3, etc.
DELUXE PAINT III' Paint Package. PLUS:

*"1 yx-~3>v ' LEMMINGS ' (top sellert)
(Tib /Jrt^&rt) CAPTAIN PLANET'

&J^

£369.99

AVAILABLE WITH 2ND 3.8
EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR A
SPECIAL PRICE OF £41 9,99

BART SIMPSON vs. THE SPACE MUTANTS

GAZZA

transfers to Evesham

Micros with our new

brilliant value
Classics Extra Pack!

CARTOON CLASSICS EXTRA' PACK

Features an Amiga 500 Cartoon Classics Pack
as detailed above, plua theae Fabuloua games

OAZZA 2
NIGEL MANSELL JUNGLE BOOK' '9UBBUTEO

Trackault Manager 90 ASTERIX Tank Batlle

Battle Squadron' Diet Riot 1 Brock Alanche

Treasure Trap' LostNMm OlakMan

PLUS! A wordproceeaor and apreadfheet

£389.99

AVAILABLE WITH 2ND 3.5"

EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR A

SPECIAL PRICE OF £439.99

A500 Class of tht 90s Part C 499 00

AS00 Oats of th« 90s Part pbs our

3 5' Fitem^i 0<sk 0"v*> C 549 00

A™.ga 1S00 Stane* Pack (1Mb RAM

2a35"dn»tiColrMonriQieic. £94900
- -"Odo»e A590 ?0Mb Marfl ^>^^ C ?99 99

A590 512K RAM Upgrade C29 9S

A590'MDRAMUD9'«e C 59 95

A590 2Mb RAM Upgrade e 9*» <»5

AMIGA 1 500/2000 UPGRADES

HARD DRIVE / RAM UPGRADE BOARD KIT

Krts comprise of U s-«e r^arO oVs* co^:ro)*r caras incorporating

unpopu'aled S'MMS RAM e<panson sockets to> accommodating up

to 8Mb RAM PLUS h«gh speed fast access NEC SCSI hard d<»s

40MB HARD DRIVE & INTERFACE / RAM CARD.... £ 349.00

100MB HARD DRIVE & INTERFACE / RAM CARD.. E 499.00

PLEASE NOTE These are unpopulated HAM sockets -
Add C BO 00 per 2Mb ol RAM requtred

8Mb RAM Expansion Card with 2Mb Fitted

easily upgradeabie 1o 4Mb. 6Mb or 8Mb

£ 14995

VIRUS PROTECTOR

BANISH VIRUS PROBLEMS!

Our compact Vlrua Protector frts aaaily to the Port of the tail dlak drive in
your Amtpa lyatam. prot»ct>r>g alt mtamal »nd ailarnal drtvaa from boo!
block vlrutat Incorporata* a
twitch to enable or di*abi«
tha protection facility.

ONLY £6.95

REPLACEMENT A500 PSU

Genuine Commodore Amiga A500
type replacement Power Supply
Unit. Good quality switch mode
type. Super low pric»!

ONLY £39.95

MIDI INTERFACE

Our tuty cor^patiW* h^ quality MIDI *le*iace ox*r>ect% cVec^ *rm rhc A/ri^j
wnaiporrandprovdestN OUT & thru pons lo' good t><*uff y Faalur«LtD
ndcjlori on each port for
diagnostic purposes SuperC
compact design

ONLY £19.95

STEREO SOUND SAMPLER

Oftcnnj tuw compalfc*Wty w*th almost any Amiga audio dig***' package ouf
Sound Samper features excellent circurtry. yieWtng prolesscnai results The
mam M> conwerler grves a d*gfl*ng fesoimcr^ ol up to 50KH/ *rth a laal Wew
rate Tao prxno sockets are provided 'or stereo tine input plua an option for
rrwerophone Adjuslabie ga»n « acriteved wtih built-in coniro* knob Complete
wilh public domain est
containing sound sampling
appfcationa I uttM <s

ONLY £29.95

AMIGA 500 INTERNAL 3.5" REPLACEMENT DRIVE

Fully compatible. Kit includes full fitting instructions C 41 .99

New COMMODORE C T V Including Lemmlnge' 4

Hutchlnaona EncyclopeadLa Starter Compact Otaka C (79 00

vtQt-Ami9a vx)ao d^aar package *nc VlDt-Chrome C 11000
VtOt-Chrom* Amiga colour frame genefaton ki tofn B4W *mage» C 1695

VaOt-flGB cotour frame generaton M from BAW kt^qm C 64 95

EMR VIDCOPILOT V320 Soprutcattd Vdeo EiM^ng Sy**»m C 999 00
KCS Powtrboard Hardware PC Emulator wth is own

iMbotRAMorvboard 5 1 2K uaMtM ni Am^a mode 1 229 99

Klchaian i 3 Upgrade t 29 9*

Amiga 500 Dual Cover C 4 95

NEWI STAR LC20 9-Pin Printer

NEW SUCCESSOR TO THE STAR LC-10 WITH
MANY FEATURES AND A FASTER PRINT SPEED

Provir>r\g tupartativ* pap*r hanrjbng four exce<>e*M NLO 'o^ta and a
n«* «up«r-taai pnrtt %peed of iBOcp* .n rjratt and 44 cos kfl NLO rh#
LC70 appropnatriiy supercedes tne pnenomenaity succeM»ut LCtO *

INCLUDES CONNECTION

CABLE A 12 MONTHS
ON SITE MAINTENANCE*

ONLY £139.99

PO/MTCDC Prices Include VAT.
rl%ini t Cl%& delivery and cable

EVESHAM MICROS SPECIAL OFFER t

All STAR Printers include 12 months On-Srte Maintenance

Star IC 200 »Pr Cotou' 4 torts 1B0 45cps C 209 00

NEWT STAR LC20 tan iKMScpt super 9 pr «<ceJ«ni vaKia t 139.99

StarLC24 10 74Pn 4 lorMs l80«Ocw t 209 00

SlarLC 24-200 24 Pn 5lonts 200 67cps C 249 00

Star LC 24 200C 7 colour vation ol abova C 2t9 00 '

Aulomatic Sheet Faadar 'o' above p*rters ip*s state modeh C 54 95

J NEW' SUrXB24-2M COLOUR 24*p*i 60 col po**rpnrHtr C 399 99

I NEW! Star KB24-2S0 132 co*urr^ person of XB24 2O0 1479 99

Oiivem JP- 1 50 inkfet V*f Omu qu***v aicefjtcrui value C 269 99

Olivetti JP-350 inNfai eicHJent h^jh spMd 300dpi punter C 399 99

Parwon*c KXP1124I s*jpe* last 24p^i 30O^40cps J 279 00

Citizen PRODOT-24 COLOUR

Professional 24-Pin Colour Printer
* at a budget price!

"■ghV v«rsa^* a»na# QuaWy
center 200 cp* output +*
*a*s 66 cpa tn LO moda (5 true
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"rrorn front panel jG^pr«a r#% 360 ■
iBOdp jFara%iand5enaMniar1*cea
A S**g*e Snee* Feed as vlartfard
2 Year Uanutaduwa Warranty

Normal RRP: £ 74635 inc. VAT

ONLY £269.00

including VAT t
delivery and cable

Olivetti DM124C COLOUR

Professional 24-Pin Cotour

Printer with full 12 Months

On-Site Warranty Cover !

200 cps m draft. $0 cps m LO rrcdt

j 7 Cotour output G'aphct '•* 360

■ 180dpi , Mug« 40k buffw j

TraclOf A S^gto S^l Iwd

12 MONTHS ON-SITE WAHHANTV

DM1 24C Normal RRP; C 389 95 inc.VAT

Digriji Wordyrorth

t 11900

Kind Won* 2

C37»

Prolatl VS

f ng«

Hmo** Hrama Arcourta

C23«

Deriaa Paint 4

CPOA

D#aV<Jao3 C94 9S

Muk-X 11 t 6S 00

AMOS C 37 50

H<Son LattceC nwoo

GPA BASIC V3 C»«

GPA BASIC Corrvile' t 34 96

D#vp»c 7 IS (44 U'

Danev An»fTwtion $tud*o ( 69 95

ONLY £269.00

including VAT.
delivery and cable

TRACKBALL

Eiceaanl new hy pariorrnance Trac4ial
Kfy compalWe lo any Arrwga or Alan ST
Operates irt*n r*a mome or foythc* po^

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TrK*£>aii ■ Total one-rvandad control

Top tjxiatty conairudco and op*o*

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ONLY £29.95

:*I

• AH3AI130 V 1VA 3QmDNI S3DIVd 77V •

iSOJj|nuieijs3A3

AH3AH30 y 1VA SOmiNI SSDIHd 77V

AMIGA 500 Basic pack 4 £439.99

includes: I Mb Memory. Mouse, TV Modulator , PSU, Manuals,

1 Mb Internal Drive, 4096 colours
PLUS: MOUSE MAT, DUST COVER, WORDWORTH
PLUS: EXTERNAL 2nd DISK DRIVE

AMIGA 500 ROME OFFICE PACK

£549

includes: Amiga 500, 1Mb Memory, Mouse. TV Modulator , PSU,
Manuals, 1Mb Internal Drive, 4096 colours

PLUS: WORDWORTH WP, HOME ACCOUNTS SOFTWARE
Star LC20 OR MPS 1270 Ink Jet Printer (please specify)

AMIGA 500 FIRST STEPS

£459

Includes; 1Mb Memory, PSU. 1 Mb internal disk drive. Manuals
TV Modulator. Dpaint II. Deluxe Print. Music Mouse,
Logo. Talking Turtle, BBC Emulator and Programmes,
10 blanks disks , Lets spell at home, prowrite WP,
infofile Spreadsheet., Dos and Don't Poster, Resource ,
in pack video, NAPE Booklet

AMIGA 1500 NEW"*"" £649

Includes: Toki, Puznic and ELF. Home Accounts. Works Platinum,
Database, Spreadsheet, Dclux Paint III

Hard Drives For AMIGA A500

AS90

A590 + 2MB RAM
CVP Scries II 52Mb

External Floppy Disk Drives

Roc tec
Cumana

Memory Ipgrades

A50I (extra 0.5Mb)
Unbranded 0.5Mb with clock

Printers

Star LC 200 including printer lead

Star LC24-200C including printer lead

Star LC20 including printer lead

Star XB24-200 including lead and on site maintenance

Citizen Swift 24-pin colour with printer lead

Monitors

Philips 8833 Mkll with leads
Commodore 1084 with leads
Commodore 1083 with leads

CLASSIC ADD ON PACKS

Pack A
Pack B

£265
£325
£429

£59
£59

£39

£25

£185
£290
£149
£349
£295

£225
£219
£219

PD Disks, Mouse Mat, Dust Cover £10.99

Mouse, Mastering AmigaDOS Book Volume 1 £43.99

Mastering Amiga DOS Book Volume 2 £ 43.99

PackC 2nd External Drive, 512k Memory Upgrade £89.99
Four PD disks Including: Word Processor,
Database, Spreadsheet and Virus Killer

PackD WORDWORTH Wordprocessor £176.99
2nd Disk Drive, 512K Memory Upgrade, 10 Blank Disks

CIASS1C PD Library 9Sp per disk

Classic Computers has a large PD Library. Disks are available for just
95p each. Send an sae now for our full list of software.

Delivery and Charges

Next day deltas) lor credit card orders placed before 4pm subject to
availablity. Alternatively send cheque/PO to address right. Please allow 5
working davs for cheque clearance. Subject to availabilty, despatch is
normally within 24 hours of reciept of cleared payment.
Small consumables and software:

Other items:

Offshore and highlands:
Saturday deliveries:
7am-9am next dav:
Am next dav:

Prices may fee changed without prior notice E&EO

By post, check charges when ordering

Next day courier service £ 10 per box

Normal rate plus £20 + VAT per box

Normal rate plus £ 10 surcharge + VAT

Normal rate plus £10 + VAT

Normal rate plus £5 + VAT

omputers

MAIL ORDER ONLY
AMIGA 500 basic pack 1 £285

includes: 512k RAM, Mouse . TV modulator. PSU ,

manuals, 1Mb internal drive 4096 colours
PLUS : MOUSE MAT and DUST COVER

AMIGA 500 basic pack 2 £305

includes: 512 K RAM, mouse, TV Modulator , PSU,
Manuals, 1Mb internal drive 4096colours

PLUS : MOUSE MAT , DUST COVER
and EXTRA 512KRAM

AMIGA 500 basic pack 3 £345

Includes: 1 Mb Memory, Mouse. TV Modulator, PSU.
Manuals. 1Mb Internal Drive, 4096 Colours

PLUS
PL1

PLUS

MOUSE MAT & DUST COVER

Mastering AmigaDOS Books Volumes I and 2
Mastering Amiga C book and disks

AMIGA Cartoon Classics £345

Includes: 1Mb Memory, "The Simpsons", "Captain Planet
and Planeteers" and "Lemmings" games, PSU,
Manuals. 1Mb Internal Drive. TV Modulator,
4096 colours

PLUS: Dpaint III

Cartoon Classics Software Pack £49

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LANGUAGES

nee upon a time, there
was an unmanned
American space probe
making its way to Venus.
During its journey, a course
correction was required which
involved the execution of a previously
unused segment of Fortran code.
This segment involved a line which
was supposed to set up an iterative
loop to be executed three times. It
looked like this:

DO 3 1-1.3

Unfortunately, there is a full stop
missing after the keyword DO, so
instead of initiating a loop the
program created a variable called
D03I and set it to a value of 1.3. The
probe was never heard from again.

This sort of thing would never
happen with Modula 2, a language
which NASA is currently considering
for use in its future endeavours.

Modula 2 was designed and
written by Niklaus Wirth as a
successor to Pascal, another of his
creations. It is a very powerful
language, similar in many ways to C
- although if you were to compare
listings of the same program written
in both Modula 2 and C you might
find this last statement surprising.
They look quite different, but they are
functionally very similar: there are
few things that can be done with one
language which can't be done with
the other.

The main difference between the
two is that Modula 2 is stricter
language. Since one of Wirth's
design goals was to create a
language which would help students
to learn how to program, Modula 2
discourages bad programming
design. Programmers are forced to
write in a far more structured way
using Modula 2; the option is always
open to a C programmer to write his
or her code in an unreadable, highly
unstructured way. Of course, whether
programmers should be given this
option is debatable.

IMPRESSIVE STRUCTURES

So, Moduia 2 encourages structured
programming', a phrase which will be
familiar to those who have had the
misfortune to take any kind of course
in programming. But what is It?
Basically, it is a set of rules which
certain academics believe
programmers ought to follow in order
to produce program code which
works correctly and which can be
understood and modified easily at a
later date.

We present a new series which
looks at the different language
available for the Amiga. In this
article, we investigate Modula

There are a lot of good ideas in
structured programming. For
example, the need to declare all
variables before use. What this
means is that before the program
proper, all variables to be used must
be explicitly named, along with the
type of value that they are to hold
(integer, character and so on}. Any
variables used by the program which
are not declared will cause an error
at compile time. This is handy for
picking up typing errors in a variable
name, or the sort of errors which
loose spaceships.

Perhaps the most important
tenet of structured programming is
that programs should be broken
down into separate chunks. This is
analogous to the use of subroutines
in Basic, but languages such as
Modula 2 and C provide more
sophisticated ways of doing this by
means of 'Procedure' and 'Function'
structures. Modula 2 goes one stage
further, with the introduction of
modules (surprise, surprise).

COMMAND MODULES

A module is an independent section
of code, compiled on its own. There
are two main types: program
modules and implementation
modules. Each program consists of
only one program module, but may
make reference to procedures in any
number of implementation modules.
These provide a way of creating
libraries: the actual code in such a
module is completely hidden from
the outside world, and all that a
program knows is the names of the
procedures and functions inside the
module, the parameters these
require, and any special variable
types declared within the module.
This information is made available to
the program module by means of a
corresponding definition module,
roughly equivalent to the FD files on
the Amiga Extras disk which provide
interface information for the Amiga's
system libraries.

The advantage of this is that
once an implementation module has
been written and debugged, it can be
left well alone. If a bug arises in the
calling program, it will not affect the
code inside the implementation

module, which can safely be
assumed to be working. Another
advantage is that general purpose
implementation modules can be re-
used with different programs, saving
programmers from continuously re-
inventing the wheel.

PROGRAM LAYOUT

So what does a Modula 2 program
consist of, exactly?

Program modules begin with the
keyword MODULE, followed by the
module's name and a semi-colon.

After this comes a series of
IMPORT statements. What these do
is extract routines from the afore-
mentioned definition and
implementation modules. Just about
any Modula 2 program will have
IMPORT statements in It because,
like C. the language itself is very
sparse, without routines to perform
even rudimentary input and output or
string handling. Such things are
handled by pre-written library
routines, as they are in C.

The next step is the declaration
of variables and constants.
Constants are simply a way of using
a word to represent a value which
will not vary. Giving constants names
can greatly add to the readability and
maintainability of a program.

Modula 2 supports a variety of
variable types, including integer,
cardinal (unsigned integer),
character, floating point and Boolean
(with values of TRUE or FALSE).
Variables declared in this part of the
program are visible to the entire
program - any part of the program
can read and alter their values.

String variables are created by
declaring them as arrays of
characters, as they are in C. A
consequence of this is that, unlike
Basic, any given string variable has a
maximum length decided by the
programmer, and even if the string is
shorter than its maximum, it still
takes up the full amount of space.

Modula 2 also allows the
creation of structured variable types
- a collection of simpler types joined
in a particular manner and given a
user-specified name.

Modula 2, unlike C or Basic, is
very fussy about types, and will not

"You don't just have to stick
with C or Basic, you know -
there are loads of other
languages available."

Cliff Ramshaw

allow them to be mixed in
expressions or assignments. For
instance, an attempt to give a
floating point variable an integer
value will cause an error, whereas
Basic or C will assume that a
conversion is required and will
perform it implicitly - something
which is frowned upon by structured
programmers. To get around this,
since it is often necessary to convert
from one type to another. Modula 2
allows type conversion by a process
called casting.

THE NEXT PROCEDURE

Once variable declaration is out of
the way. the next step is the
definition of any procedures local to
the module (remember that external
procedures can also be used). There
are really two types of procedure: the
normal type, which simply carries out
a set of instructions and then returns
control to the calling section of code;
and the function type, which actually
returns a value to the calling code.

Procedures in Modula 2 have an
optional parameter list, which
describes the number and types of
variables to be passed to the
procedure. Their names need not be
the same as the names of the
variables used in the calling
statement. A procedure is called by
its name and a list of parameters to
be passed to it enclosed in brackets.
As with C (and some Basics) two
classes of parameters may be used:
value and variable.

Value parameters are the
default. When one is passed to a
procedure, a copy is made of it and
all work done by the procedure on it
is actually done on the copy. When
the procedure is finished, the copy is

coatwwd oa poye 98

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

LANGUAGES

continued from page 97

destroyed, leaving the original
parameter untouched. Use of value
parameters is considered good style,
since it means that the procedure is
incapable ot messing around with
any variable*; that it should leave

alone. It alao means that the
language supports recursion.
Sometimes it is necessary for

the procedure to alter its parameters

and for these alterations to be made
known to the overall program. In this
case, variable parameters are used
(prefixed by VAR in the procedure
declaration). When a variable
parameter is used by a procedure,
what is actually passed is a
reference to tho parameter in the
calling statement. All operations on
the parameter within the procedure
are performed on the original

variable, by means of this indirect

reference. This is the same as, in C,
passing a pointer to a procedure.

In the procedure body, as with

the overall module, any variables
needed are declared. These are local
to that procedure - they cannot be
accessed by the calling program,
although they can be accessed by
any procedures defined inside the
procedure in which the variables are
declared (if you see what I mean!).

After this comes the main code,
describing what the procedure
actually does, rounded off with an
END statement.

If the procedure is a function,
then it will include a RETURN
statement, followed by the
expression it is to return (an
expression may be a simple value, a
variable, or a combination of values
and variables). Also, at the end of
the initial PROCEDURE statement,
after the parameter list, the type
(integer, real, or whatever) of the
returned value will be declared.
Once alt of the procedures have been
defined, it is time to get on with the
body of the program. In Modula 2,
this is often quite short - consisting
mainly of calls to the other
procedures and sections of linking
code. It begins with a BEGIN keyword
(as does the code within a
procedure), and ends with an END.

In fact, most control structures
are delimited by the END keyword. A
conditional statement consists of IF,
followed by the condition and THEN.
Between the THEN and END come all
the statements to be executed if the
condition evaluates to true.

A similar construct is expressed
with the DO ... END keywords. This is
used with both the WHILE statement,
in which a condition is expressed
and the following statements
executed in a loop until the condition
becomes false, and the FOR loop, in
which the following statements are
executed in a loop for the number of
times specified within the FOR
statement itself.

For an example of Modula 2
code, and a brief explanation, see
the panel below.

WHAT USE?

So what can Modula 2 be used for?
Well, anything that Pascal might be
used for since, aside from a few
syntactical differences, the language
is essentially a superset of Pascal.
C, however, is its main competitor.
Like C. Modula 2 supports structured
data types and has facilities for easy
access to the individual elements of
such types; it also has ADDRESS
and BYTE data types, and allows
hexadecimal values and assembler
statements to be placed directly in
the code. As such, it is a language
suited to systems programming and
speed-intensive applications.

It lacks a few of the subtleties of
C. such as the facility to increment
or decrement a variable while it is
being used in an expression, but
these things can be accomplished
with a few lines of code. Basically,
Modula 2 is a more verbose
language, and one which is more
careful to make you follow the rules.
The uses to which it can be put are
the same as C. and it is on its speed
that it must stand or fall.

It is a fast language, no doubt
about it. The problem is that,
because it has not gained the
popularity of C. not as much work
has gone into developing compilers

A SAMPLE MODULA 2 PROGRAM

Calculating the prime numbers between 1 and a given
value is one of the simplest, non-trivial computer
problems, and can be elegantly expressed In Modula 2:

MODULE primes;

FROH IfiOut IMPORT

Wr4t«String,Writ»Ln,Writ«Card,R«adCard;

var axmt, airrent, final, teat t cardinal;

BEGIN

WriteString{ 'Enter maximum value you wish J
to check ' ) ;

ReadCard( final);

WriteLnO;

FOR current :-l TO final DO
test:«2;

■

WHILE (test<current DIV 2) AND ((current J
DIV test)* teat # current) DO
test :=test+l;

IF ((current DIV te8t)*test#current) THEN
WriteCard (current , 5) ;

WriteLnO;
END;
END;

END primes.

The first line gives the name of the module, which must
be the same as the filename. The FROM ... IMPORT
statement gets a few necessary routines from the
InOut library. After that come the variable declarations:
all are of type CARDINAL, which Is to say they are all
positive integers.

There are no procedures, so we go straight on with
the program proper, denoted by the BEGIN statement.
WrfteString, ReadCard and WriteLn are three of the
InOut routines; the parameters to be passed are
enclosed In brackets. Note that although WriteLn
requires no parameters, It must still be called with
empty brackets. ReadCard reads user Input from the
console and puts it into the CARDINAL parameter.

Next comes the FOR loop, which has much the
same syntax as In Basic. Assignments In Modula 2 are
done with the •:=' symbol, to differentiate them from
comparisons of equality.

The WHILE loop tests the two conditions, and
continues Incrementing the variable 'test' until either
of the conditions proves false. Once this loop has been
exited, we know that either 'current' is exactly
divisible by 'test', or that test' Is greater than or equal
to half the value of current' (In which case there Is no
need for further tests).

Program flow continues beyond the END statement,
coming to the IF statement, which again tests If
current' Is exactly divisible by 'test'. If It is not, then
current Is a prime number and It is printed out. The
InOut procedure WriteCard requires two parameters;
the first Is the CARDINAL to be output, the second to
the number of characters to be printed.

The conditional is terminated wfth an END
statement, as is the FOR loop. Finally, the module
Itself is terminated wfth another END statement, this
time Including the module's name and a full stop.

for it. and so they tend to produce
slower, less efficient code. Having
said that, its speed is perfectly
adequate for most purposes,
although you certainly won't be able
to write the next arcade smash with
it. Then again, you would be foolish
to try that in C.

There are now two or three
Modula 2 packages available for the
Amiga. The one we tried out is
M2Amiga. by A+L AG Meier-Vogt, a
Swiss company. It comes on two
disks, and will conceivably run on an
unexpanded Amiga with two disk
dnves. although extra memory and a
hard drive will help enormously.

The compiler itself is a single-
pass affair, meaning it only has to
look through the source code once
before producing its output object
code. It is therefore fast. The
package also includes a set of
standard Modula 2 libraries and a
set of libraries providing interfaces to
all of the Amiga's own libraries. A
linker is supplied but, like most
Modula 2 linkers, it is grossly
inefficient. If, for example, a program
makes use of the WriteString routine
in the InOut module (Modula 2's
standard input/output library), the
whole of the InOut module is linked
with the object code, along with all of
the unused routines, adding an
unnecessary 3K to the length of the
finished code.

A number of demo programs are
included in the package, which show
how Modula 2 can be used to
interface to the Amiga's graphics and
other libraries.

The accompanying manual is
slim but adequate. It makes no
attempt to teach or even describe
Modula 2 in detail - a reference
book is needed for that. It briefly lists
the interfaces to the Modula 2 and
Amiga libraries, but again, the Amiga
reference manuals will be required
before any serious Amiga
programming is attempted.

Modula 2 is a powerful and tidy
language. As well as being of
interest to the serious programmer,
it could be of use to someone
wanting to make the move from
Basic to a structured language, or
even to someone wishing to learn
how to program from scratch. QJ

rooooooooo

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AMIGA SMOPPFR • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

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PROGRAM

Cliff

odios and gentlemen,
welcome once more to that
singularly fascinating section
of the magazine: Cliff's Code
Conundrum. This month, we have for
your delectation the winning solution
to the Conundrum set in issue five,
which was to write a program which
would recursively search directories
for a named file.

Tony Rushbrook, of Dartford in

Kent, came up with the best
solution. It is written in C (I was
surprised to find no Basic entries in
the post bag. I must say) and as you
C9n sgg from the listing, it is

Technical editor Cliff Ramshav/
presents the Winner of the Code
Conundrum set in issue 5

designed in a very neat, modular
way. Tony will be receiving a crisp
£50 cheque for his efforts.

The program accepts wildcards in
the filename to be searched for, both
of the AmigaDOS variety (# and ?)
and of the Unix/MS-DOS type (•).
The program uses the technique of
recursion to ascend and descend the

directory trees as required during the
search for files.

AND NOW...

The next tortuous, titillating teaser
requires you to write a textual
analysis program. I don't want
anything too heavy, just a program
which will take a text file, count the

number of words and sentences,
give an average sentence length and
the average number of commas,
colons and semi-colons in each
sentence. What could be easier?

As usual, any language is
permissible, but make sure that you
include the source code. Also,
include an SAE if you want your disks
returned {programs submitted as
listings only will not be considered -
I've better things to do than typing in
other people's programs). Bear in my
mind that we will be printing and
possibly distributing on disk the
winning solution. Q)

#include <Btdio.h>
•include <stdlib.h>

tinclude <string.h>

tinelude <proto/dos.h>

#define VERSION "1.0"

#define NORMAL "\2330;31;40\155"

#define COLOR1 "\2330;33;40\155"

•define COLOR2 -\2330;32;40\155*

#define DELEOLN "\233\113"

/* by Tony Rushbrook */

void main (argcargv)

int argc;

char *argv[] ;

{

char filename [108] ;

char pathname [108] ;

short int i ;

fprintf (stderr, "%sFIND V Ha, by Tony J

Rushbrook

1991%e\n",COLOR2, VERSION, NORMAL);

if (argc—1) /* help! */

(

fprintc iot<i«rr, "USAOfii "to [socarch J

pathname>] <filename>\n",argv[03 J;

)
else

{

strcpy (pathname, argv[lj ) ;

i = strleri(pathname) ;

while ((i!-0) &&

(pathname [i-1] !='/')fct

(pathname [i-1] 1= ':')) i-#

strcpy (filename, &pathname[i] );

pathname (i]s0 ;

fprintf ( stderr, "%sFound*d J

entries. %s%s\n",COLOR2, J

Search (pathname, filename) ,DELBOLN, NORMAL) ;

)

exit (0);

)

DisplayParent (TempHD, OutputKD)

BPTR TempHD;

FILE 'OutputHD;

{

char Name [108]='"';

short int 1;

CalcPath (TempHD, Name) ;

i=0;

while (Nameti] 1- '/') U+J

Name[i] - ':';

if (Name[strlen(Name)-l] ««'/') J

Name[strlen(Name)- 11-0;

fprintf (OutputHD, rt %s M # Name);

return TRUE;

CalcPath(TempHD, TempString)
BPTR TempHD;
char *TempString;

{

BPTR ParentHD;

struct FilelnfoBlock *InfoBlock;

InfoBlock = malloc(260);

if (ParentHD- ParentDir (TempHD) )

CalcPath ( ParentHD, TempString ) ;
UnLock ( ParentHD) ;

)

Examine (TempHD, InfoBlock) ;

sprintf (fcTerapString [strlen J

(TempString) ],"%»/", InfoBlock- J

>f ib_FileName) ;

free (InfoBlock);

return TRUE;

}

Search (SearchDir, SearchName)

char * SearchDir;

char 'SearchName;

{

BPTR OldHD;

BPTR SearchHD;

struct FilelnfoBlock *InfoBlock;

•int Counter«0;

SearchHD*Lock ( SearchDir, ACCESS. READ) ;

if (iSearchHD) fprintf (stderr, "ERROR: J

No such search directory: J

\s \n", SearchDir);

else

{

InfoBlock - aalloc<260);

OldHDsCurrentDir(SearchHD) ;

fprintf (stderr, "*s",COLORl) ;

DisplayParent (SearchHD, stderr) ;

fprintf (stderr, "^s^s\r", DELEOLN, NORMAL);

Examine ( SearchHD, InfoBlock ) ;

while (ExNext( SearchHD, InfoBlock))

{

if (compare (InfoBlock- >fib FileName J

.SearchName))

{

BPTR TempHD;

TempHD=Lock( InfoBlock- >fib_FileName, J

ACCESS_READ) ;

if (TempHD)

{

Counter ++;

DisplayParent (TempHD, stdout);

if (InfoBlock->fib_DirEntryType>0) J

f print f ( stdout ,"/") ;

fprintf (stdout, "\n");
UnLock (TempHD);

)
)
if (InfoBlock->fib_DirKntryType>0)

Counter+«Search(InfoBlock->fib_ J

FileName, SearchName) ;

)

SearchHTteCurrentDir (OldHD) ;

fprintf (stderr, "\s",COLORl);

DisplayParent (OldHD, stderr) ;

fprintf (stderr, "^e^sXr", DELEOLN, NORMAL);

free (InfoBlock);

UnLock (SearchHD) ;

return Counter;

compare (Master, Wildcard)
char 'Master;
char 'Wildcard;

(

int Mc=0,Wc=0,Ws=0;
int wi Id jumps 0;
for (;;)

{

if (!Btraamp(&wildcard[Wc],"* w ,l)) J

wi Id jumps 1;

if (!strncmp(&Wildcard[Wc],"#?",2)) J

wild jump- 2;

if (wildjumpUO)

{

ws-wc+wildjump;

Wc-Wa;

wildjumpKO;

)

else

(

if ( (Master [Mc]«0) kk (Wildcard[Wc] J

1-0)) return FALSE;

if < (toupper (Master [Mc] )!« toupper J

(WildcardtWc])) kk (Wildcard[Wc] I-'?') )

if (Ws«0) return FALSE;

Mc— Wc-Ws;

WC-Ws;

)

else if (Wildcard [Wc] 1-0) Wc++;

if (Master[Mc] 1- 0) Hc+ + ;

)

if ( (Master [Mc]«0) kk (Wildcard [Wc J J

■■0)) return TRUE;

)

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AMIGADOS

While I was compiling
the book Mastering
AmigaDOS 2
(available through our
sister magazine Amiga Format) with
Bruce Smith, we often found that we
both needed to use the Amiga at the
same time. The simplest method
would have been to buy another
A3000. but at the time Amiga 3000s
were in short supply and very
expensive; they still are. For the sake
of speed, the only solution was to
connect two machines back-to-back
using AmigaDOS 2 on both.
Impossible? Well, it might seem like
that - especially when you realise
that the second machine need not
be an Amiga at all! In fact, just about
any small computer system you
happen to have lying around can be
pressed into service. You will need
the following items:

Remote (parasite) machine

• A computer with a serial
interface.

• A null modem cable with
connections for the Amiga {see
note below)

• A simple terminal package for
the second micro

• An assistant

Ho»t (flleserver) machine

• Any Amiga

• Either AmigaDOS 1.3 or better

• or AmigaDOS 1.2 and AUX from
the Fish PD collection

Note: The A1000 and A2000 models
have a non-standard serial interface.

How to create a multi-user system
wifh little more than a toilet roll
and some sticky-backed plastic.
Mark Smiddy presents part one

Although it will be possible to use
these, you must get the correct lead
as a standard cable fits the printer
port. This does not affect the B2000
machine.

On the remote computer front, you
can typically use another Amiga, an
Atari ST, an Amstrad PCW with the
serial port option, an MTX 500, an
Acorn BBC B, and most cheap PC
clones. If you do not have any of
these, you may find a cheap CP/M
machine at amateur (ham) radio
rallies. Ham radio enthusiasts tend
to use CP/M machines for packet
radio, and a suitable second-hand
setup can be had for as little as 30
quid. Whatever you do. try not to
spend too much money - and read
the whole of this article before
parting with any cash. Using the
Amiga in this way is simple but
raises some interesting problems.

GETTING STARTED

Interfacing two machines in this way
is relatively easy. First of all, connect
them via the serial ports using your
null modem cable.

Once the two machines are
connected, you must decide on a
serial protocol. That is, the way the

What exactly Is
a 'multiuser
system' then?

A muttkiser system Is exactly
what Its name suggests - one
computer system which can be
used by more than one person at
the same time. Such systems
normally run on powerfull
mainframe computers, but there's
no reason why your Amiga
shouldn't have at least one
remote terminal attached.

At least one what?

Remote terminal. That Is, a
keyboard and screen which are
directly attached to the computer
but which don't have to be right

BEGINNERS

START HERE

next to It. With
the system
described here, you could have
one person using the Amiga from
its own keyboard, and another
connected to the computer using
a remote terminal in another
room.

So how come two people can use
the same computer at the same
time?

That's because the Amiga is a
multi-tasking machine. In other
words, It can be doing more than
one thing at the same time. In
this case, It will be dealing with
two separate sets of inputs, from
two different people.

machines will talk to each other. As
an analogy: it's no use having the
Amiga speaking Serbo-Croat to the
remote and the remote trying to
answer back in ancient Greek.

Protocols in serial
communications are just like
language - so long as the two
speakers agree to speak the same
tongue there is no problem. There
are four main parameters to consider
here (if you have been following our
comms features you should already
be familiar with them). These
parameters are:

• Baud rate - the transmission
speed

• Word length - the number of bits
in each data byte

• Parity - error checking

• Stop bits - the number of bits to
send after each data byte

Errors in setting all of these
parameters are what give rise to
garbage being received.

For the purposes of this type of
communication, a fairly fast data rate
is required. In practice some setups
refuse to work at speeds exceeding
4.800 baud: the best speed can be
achieved through trial and error. The
other parameters should be set to 8
data bits, no parity and 1 stop bit.
(Comms nuts refer to this as 4800-
8ni.) You should set these at the
Amiga end with the Preferences tool,
and at the remote end with whatever
comms package you are using.

TESTI NG 1 -2-3

Once the computers are configured
correctly you can perform the initial
test. Open a Shell on the Amiga and
enter the following (remember not to
type the 1> part; this just shows
where each new line starts):

l>ECHO >T:msg "Hello World"
1>C0PY T:msg to AUX:

alternatively you can enter:
1>ECH0 >AUX: "Hello World"

However, the latter method has been
found to lock the AUX device on
occasion, thus preventing two-way

communication. The remote
computer should echo the message
'Hello World'. If it didn't, follow the
debugging guidelines which we will
be printing next month. If it did. you
are now ready to enter the world of
the multi-user Amiga. Note that if at
any time the Amiga or the remote

IMPORTANT

Never, ever plug or unplug a
serial lead without first
switching both computers off.
Failure to comply with this
caution can cause serious
damage to your hardware and
bank account.

terminal freezes you may have to
reset the machine.
Now enter:

1>NEWSHELL AUX:
1>

Nothing should happen at the host
machine (your Amiga): instead, the
new shell will start on the remote
terminal. Its screen will look
something like this:

New shell process 2
1>

Now ask your assistant to enter
'LIST' on the terminal. This will
provide them with a listing of your
Workbench disk or the currently
selected volume (disk). The LIST
command is usually left resident in
the 1.3 startup-sequence, and this
avoids troublesome disk swapping if
you only have one drive. This is a

( on rittuf d on peg* 1 06

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991 1 AC

A M I G A D O S

(wtmued from poge 105

nuisance in any case, but when two
people are sharing one machine it
can become a nightmare of Orwellian
proportions

PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS...

Before going any further, it is worth
noting that this technique is anything
but perfect - however, at least it's
cheap. The main problem is that it
only works with commands which
only affect the CLI or Shell window.
In other words, programs which rely
on Intuition (and that includes the ED
editor) will not work. Any Intultton
programs launched on the terminal
appear on the host machine -
usually when the operator is In the
middle of something!

Actually, it can be quite amusing
to install a beginner on the Amiga,
launch a Workbench hack such as
Viacom from the remote and watch
them squirm! This is because the

remote terminal is purely operating

as a keyboard and screen - not as a
separate computer. Because of this
It is not strictly correct to call the
host Amiga a network fileserver.

Regardless of the above
restriction, though, there are many
CLI-based commands - not just
AmigaDOS ones - which function
correctly.

WHAT NEXT?

At this point you should be able to
control many aspects of your
machine remotely from your old
hardware. But what about sending
messages between the two
machines? In a real situation the two
terminals could be rooms apart, so
chatting is out of the question - or is
it? I've already mentioned that the

remote terminal is, in reality, just an
extension of the existing machine -
so provided you can send messages
between two Shells, you can send
messages between the two
machines.

The 1.3 release of AmigaDOS
saw the inclusion of FIFO pipes. The
extension to support them was
written by Matt Dillon, and they
provide one method of
communication between Shells. For
this article though. I'll concentrate on
a different method. Each has pros
and cons - but this should serve as
an interesting introduction to the use
of files as they compare to pipes.
Listings 1 and 2 are the command
scripts used to communicate using a
form of e-mail: that is. you leave
messages for the other party which
can be collected later. Mail-2-Remote
should be used by the person sitting
at the Amiga, Mail-2-Host by the
person at the remote terminal. The
two programs are almost identical so
I'll iust describe Mall 2 Remote here.

1. This first line is very important
because it determines how the script
will react to command lines. In this
case, the script is given two
parameters: a message and a
filename. As you will see, the script
usually determines its own filenames
but you can override this feature by
entering a name here. You must
enclose the message body text in
quotes (speech marks) or the script
will fail. Typical examples might look
like this:

l>mail-2-remote -Hi Cliff!
Nice weather huh?"
l>mai 1-2 -remote "01 ' man
river" name=river

LISTING 1 • MAIL-2-REMOTE

.key message, name /k

.bra {

.ket >

.def name ItsForYou.hsts

list >T:ItsForMe<$$} T:#?.mt lformat "TYPE

\e%B*nDELETE %a%s*n"

execute T:ItsPorMe{$$)

if "message" EQ •*

quit

endif

10.

if exists T: (name) .hat

11.

ask "Message pending. Delete y/N?"

12.

if not warn

13.

quit

14.

endif

15.

endif

16. echo >T: (name) -hst "Posted on: ■ noline

17. date >>T: (name) .hst

18. echo >>T: (name) .hst "(message)"

JARGO

BUSTING

FIFO - First In. First Out. A drainpipe buffer. A simulated device that
information can be read from in the order it was written - this
can be likened to dropping marbles down a drainpipe (but it's
far less noisy).

Network - Two or more computers connected together. One computer
acts as a host, keeping all the programs on the a large hard
disk and driving other peripherals. The terminals can either
download software into their RAM or sometimes run in virtual
mode. The system described here is a simple virtual system.

Redirection - In AmigaDOS this is the action of sending screen output to
a file or other device, or taking keyboard input from a file or
device other than the keyboard. Redirection operators are >
(send to). < (get from) and » (append to).

2,3. Set the bracket characters to |
and } respectively. You may
remember that the brackets default
to < and >, which conflicts with the
redirection operators used
extensively in this program.

4. This line comes into effect if no
value is supplied to the name
(filename) parameter. The default
name is 'ItsForYou.hsts'.

5. This line is used to read and
delete any new mall messages from
the remote terminal. It's very
complex, so I'll break it down into its
component parts:

5.1 Hst

This is the 'list' command itself.

5.2 >T:ItsForMe(S$>

This names the destination script file
which is created at 5.4. The file will

be place in the T: assignment
(usually RAM:T) and called
ItsForMelXX]. where XX is the
process number of the current Shell;
this allows the script to create a
unique name for itself in the multi-
tasking environment.

5.3 T:»?.rmt

This selects any mail messages in T:
which have been sent from the
remote. This is done using the
AmigaDOS 'everything' wildcard #?
with the extension '.rmt'. The .rmt
extension is added to every message
written by Mail-2-Host. This program
does much the same thing at step
10 using the extension .hst.

5.4 lformat 'TYPE J
%s%s*nDELETE %s%s*n"

This creates a temporary script
program to read and remove the
current messages. Assuming that

coatimwd m pogt 1 08

LISTING 2 • MAIL-2-HOST

.Key message, name/k

.bra {

.ket >

.def name ItsForYou.rmts

list >T:ItsPorHe{$$} T:#?.hst lformat "TYPE *s\a # nDELETE

%s%s*n"

execute T:XtsForMe{$$>

echo >>T: (name) .rmt "{message}"

if "message" EQ ""

quit

endif

if exists T: (name). rmt

ask "Message pending. Delete y/N?"

if not warn

quit

endif

echo >T: {name) .rmt "Posted on: " noline

date >>T: {name) .rmt

echo >>T: (name) .rmt "{message}

1 f\A AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

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Britain's fastest-
growing publisher
17 national
magazines:
Amiga Shopper,
Amiga Format.
Amiga Power.
Public Domain,
PC Format. ST
Format. New
Computer Express,
Commodore
Format. Sega
Power, Your Sinclair,
Amstrad Action.
8000 Plus, PC Plus.
PC Answers, Classic
CD. Mountain Biking
UK. Needlecraft.

Future Publishing Ltd, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW

Tel: (0225) 442244

SHOPPER

Production editor

Salary negotiable, according to experience

Amiga Shopper is the leading magazine for
serious users of the Amiga computer; no games
here! We intend to lift the production standards of
the magazine above the other run-of-the-mill
computer titles, so we need a production editor
who gets things done.

Superb subbing skills are essential; much of
the work involves turning contributors' offerings
into cogent English. Extracting copy from
recalcitrant authors requires a strong personality.
The ability to find a way out of an impossible
situation would be useful, as would an eye for a
striking headline.

We work entirely on Macs: DTP experience is
essential. No prior knowledge of Amigas is
required, so Amiga tech-heads with no publishing
experience need not apply.

Please write with CV and details of current
salary to the editor, Stuart Anderton.

Credit Card Hotline
Tel: 0734 890588

Virgo,

DEVELOPMENTS

Sapphire House, Fishponds
Road, Wokingham,
Berkshire, RG11 2QJ.
Fax: 0734 891646

Amiga A500
RAM CARDS

nnannnni

DQDDOnilJi

V50C: '/4Mbyte expansion.

Upgrade your Amiga A500 to 1Mb.
Chip/fast ram compatible, gold plated
connector, On/Off switch.

V501: '/2Mbyte expansion + Clock.
As V500 + Battery backed real time

clock

V2000: 2Mbyte expansion + clock.
Upgrade your Amiga A500 to 2.5Mb.
Expandable in ViMeg stages,
compatible with Kickstart 1.2 & 1.3,
On/Off switch, gives 1Mb of chip
ram + 1.5 Mb fast ram it" required.
Comes complete with Gary connector
& full installation instructions.

V4000: 4Mbyte expansion + clock.
Upgrade your Amiga A500 to 4.5 Mb.
Same as V2000 but gives an additional
4Mb of fast ram or 3.5Mb fast +
1Mb chip ram

□

ONLY
£23,99

ONLY
£27.99

External 3%" Disk Drive

Top quality, low noise, high
reliability lmeg drive. | .pen qc

Ram chips 256Kx4
A590 compatible

£17.59 for

VfcMbyte

3V4" DSDD

2 for 1 guarantee

£4.45 for 10

V2000 bare board

£37.95

V2000 + 2Mbyte

ONLY
£104.95

V4000 bare board

£63.00

V4000 + 4Mbyte

ONLY £198.00

AUDIO SHOP

Midi Interface £19.50

Stereo Sound Sampler £29.00

Sound Demon

Quality stereo sound from your
Amiga, featuring top quality amplifier
with 2 superb 3-way 30W speakers &.
jack for headphones. £39.95

Dispatch within 24 hours
12-month guarantee,

Cheques. Postal orders to

Vir»o Developments at above

address

Express Courier delivery

(UK mainland only) £5.50

All prices
include VAT,

postage &
packaging. No
hidden charges

107

A M I G A D O S

continued from page 1 06

the remote's operator has used the
'name' option to create a message
called hello, the resulting program
would look like this:
TYPE T:hello.rmt
DELETE T:hello.rmt

6. This runs the script created at
Step 5. reading any pending
messages and deleting them
afterwards. This is done to prevent a
lot of useless files jamming up the T:
assignment.

7-9. These steps are used to
determine if you have actually
entered a message - if not. the
program stops. This allows you to
check for mail periodically. (Thanks
to the nature of the Amiga, it Is
possible to design a special version

GOT A PROBLEM ?

If you get stuck with
AmigaDOS or there is anything
specific you would like to ■ "
covered here, drop a line
detailing your conundrum to:
Mark Smiddy, Amiga Shopper,
30 Monmouth Street. Bath BA1
2BW. Sorry, no personal
correspondence can be entered
into. Desperate people, with no
regard for telephone bills, can
e-mail me on CIX as smldoid'
or find me lurking in the
'amigashopper' conference.

of the Mail-2 system which will
periodically check for incoming mail
More on that later.)

10. This determines if a message
file already exists with the same
name. This means that the other
terminal has not yet read the
message, so you are given the
option to leave or update it...

COMMANDING SCRIPTS

To get the best effect from the scripts described here, you should set the
'S' protection bit of each so that they work like real commands. Assuming
you have stored the scripts In the S: directory assignment, the following will
do the trick:

1>SPAT PROTECT S:#? +S

The command SPAT used here is not In the C: directory, it is a script In its
own right which is used to add single pattern matching facilities to
commands which lack them. Don't worry about how SPAT works, rt just
does.

U. ...here. Note that the default
operation (if you just press [Return]
at the prompt) is to leave the
message untouched. As an aide-
memoire, the 'y/N?' prompt
indicates this with a capital N.

12. This determines what happens
at the 'ask' statement (Step 11).
'ask' sets the 'warn' condition if Y
was pressed and clears it otherwise.
By negating the action of , if, with the
'not' switch, the script branches to
step 14 when you enter Y.

13. If control reaches this point the
script terminates immediately.

14,15. Close the two IF...ENDIF
constructs opened at Steps 10 and
12 respectively.

16-18. These lines create a
compound message using the
current time to show the receiving
party when the message was posted.
Note the use of the append
redirection operator '»'. Under
AmigaDOS 1.3 and above, this tacks
the output of any command on to the
end of an existing file.

OPENING THE MAIL

This system for reading your
messages works - but it would be
nicer to get the machine to read
them for you. Listings 3 and 4 were
devised to do just that. They work In
a similar fashion to the others, but

LISTING 3 • HOSTREAD

.key time

.bra {

.fcet )

.def time 30

Lab Start

list >T:ItsPorMe<$$> T:#?.rmt lfoxmat "TYPE

%e%s*riDELETE %a%a*n"

if exists env: StopltNow

quit

endif

10.

run execute T:ItsFortte{$$)

11.

wait {time} mins

12.

skip Start BACK

take more advantage of the Amiga's
multitasking properties.

1. This defines the argument
template for this script. Only one
argument can be supplied here, the
time delay in minutes. Unless you
have a fast machine and a hard disk
do not set this below 10 minutes. If
no time limit is supplied, the script
will check messages every 30
minutes (defined at Step 4).

2,3. Redefine the bracket characters
as before.

4. Set the variable for the time limit
to 30 if none is supplied.

5. This label is supplied so that the
script has somewhere to return to
during looping. In fact, the script has
been designed to loop continuously
until stopped; more of that shortly.

6. This line is identical to the one
used in the Mail-2-Remote program.
It displays and removes the current
mail messages.

7-9. Check for the existence of the
StopltNow' environment variable.
Actually, this could have been a
temporary file placed anywhere, but
it is more convenient here. Note that
this line is identical in both versions
of this program - so once the
variable is set, both users will cease
to get update messages.

10. Here the script is executed as a
new process with the 'run'
command. This might seem a little
strange, but a minor bug in
AmigaDOS 'execute' causes the skip
at Step 12 to fail if it is not done.

U. This puts the script to sleep for
the predetermined time - default of
30 minutes in this case.

12. After the wait at Step 11 times
out, this forces the script to go back
and do it all again.

USING HOSTREAD

This script is an unusual one
because it is designed to multi-task
- even though it starts its own tasks
too. There are two ways of doing
this. The obvious way is:

1>RUN EXECUTE HostRead

The less obvious way is:

1>NEWSHELL

1>RUN EXECUTE HostRead

In the second case, you start a new
Shell process before starting
HostRead. This allows you to work as
normal without the messages
suddenly appearing in the middle of
your screen. Note, however, that the
second technique cannot be used on
the remote terminal because the new
Shell window will still appear on the
host's terminal - phew. Also, once
this script has been started it can
only be stopped by setting the
StopltNow environmental variable.
You can do this thus:

1>SETENV StopltNow ON

• AmigaDOS 2 users only should
enter:

1>ECH0 >ENV: StopltNow -ON -

The actual value is arbitrary, but
once this has been done, the
program will halt during its next loop.
That's all for now; next month III
look more at the dual-user system
and at using pipes. f^S

LISTING 4 • REMOTEREAD

.k«y time

.bra {
.ket )

.dot time 30

Lab Start

list >T:It8ForMe<$$) T:#?.hflt lformat "TYPE %s%e*nDELETE

%s%a*n"

i£ exists env: StopltNow

Quit
endif

run execute T:ItsForMe{$$)
wait (time) mins
skip Start BACK

1 AA AMIGA .VIOKHl-K • ISSUI / » NOVEMBER 1991

^POWER COMPUTING

LOW

PC880BPOWER DRIVE

MEMORY

Amiga 500 Internal Hard Drive

Built-in Blitz hardware copier

Built-in virus blocker

No annoying click when drive is empty

12 month warranty £65 00

PC880 POWER DRIVE

£55-00

DUAL DRIVE

The only company to make the dull drive
Quite simply, the best all rounder'
Amiga Shopper Best Buy April '91

New Dual 3-5' Drive with built-in power supply,
same features as PC880B £11000

A500 Replacement Internal Drive

No case modification required
40MBSiimlineHardDr.ve £299

A5Q0 Internal Anti-click board £9 95

NEW BLITZ AMIGA

Back-up your disks at lightning speed

Copies from the internal to the

external drive

Backs-upan Amiga disk in as little as

40 seconds

Backs-up other format disks (Atari, PCI

Copies up to three external drives

at once

Stops ALL external drives from

clicking

ContamsANTI-VIRUSswitch!-

prevents viruses from being written

into the bootblock

Works on Amiga 500 or 2000 £25

Original Blitz £15

1 5MB Expansion Board £79

OS DON T

Plugs easily into your Amiga*

512 K RAM Card without clock £24

512K RAMCard withclock £29

• Fully compaiiDle*Hh 'Finer Agnus' and 1MB Chip
RAM Kickstart 1 3 and above, simple internal fitting

GVP Series 2 Hard Disk

• FullySCSIcompatible
•Upto8MBFASTRAMon-board

• High speed "FAASTROM" controller

• Auto-boot from FFS partition

• Allcombinations available

50MB £539 100MB £699

NEW POWER SCANNER

• Scanfrom 100-400 DPI

• SimulateGrayscale

• IFF& Printer support

• Powerful Image edit software

• Crop, Cut Paste, magnify, edit

• Many more features £159

AMIGA 500

Amiga 500512K £330

Amiga 500 1MB £350

Amiga 500 2MB £395

Amiga 500 1 MB • 40MB hard disk £639

Packs do not include software unless specifically slated

•20MB formatted
•2" Hard Drive

• High Quality ICD interface

• Simple plug-in fitting

ICD

£299

ICDAdspeed

ICD Flicker Free Video £250

ICD FFV + VGA Monitor £499
ICD AdRAM MEMORY EXPANSION

0MB {A500 only, £95

2MB(A500only) £179

4MB(A500only) £249

REWRITABLE OPTICAL HARD DISK

^ V7

We ate now able lo offer the IBM optical hard
disk for the Amiga 2000. This drive is fully
rewritable, and stores up lo 128MB on each
removable 3*5" optical cartridge.

• 128MB3 5"Cartridges

• Fully rewritable

• Fits into 5-25" drive bay

• Available as external unit with PSU

• SCSI compatible

• Fast 60msSeek Rate

• High Quality - Manufactured by IBM
A2000 INTERNAL (no interface) £999
Amiga2000EXTERNAL £1199
SCSI Intertace lor Amiga 2000
(GVP/NEXUSI £199
128MB3V?" Optical Media Cartridge £36each

6 8 4

•Accelerator board
•50MH2

•Upto32MBofRAM
•For Amiga 2000

£1999

(comes with 4MB

NEXUS HARD CARDS

• High speed controller
•Upto8MBRAM on board

• Easy to install

• Fully autobooting
•Compatible with GVP and ICD

• Nexussoftware

Bare £199 40MB £349

114MBNEC20ms £499

GVP Series 2 Hard Card

•High speed 'FaastROM' controller

• Upto8MBSimmRAMonboard

• Fully autobooting

• Supports external SCSI devices

Bare £199 40MB £349

114MBNEC20ms £499

GVP 'COMBO' Board

• 22MHz or 33MH* 68030 with 68882
numeric coprocessor

• Comes with 1MB RAM installed (4MB
on33MHzversionl

•Expand up to 13MB (22MHz| or 16MB
(33MH2) using custom Simms

• Full series 2 SCSI interface
connecting directly to the 68030 bus

22MHzCombowith1MBRAM £799

33MHz Combo with 4MB RAM £1495
40MB SCSI hard disk for Combo £249

GENERAL

114MB SCSI HarddiskforCor
32-bit Simm 1MB

ibo £299

Hard wearing dust cover

£249 I
£235 I
£169

£99 95

Philips colour monitor Mkll
KCS PC Power Board
ATonce

CHIPS

256Kx4DRAM

£5

ATonceA2000

£199

IMBxIDRAM

£5

Floppy disk (mm quantity 50) £0 34 each

1MBx8Simm

£40

Maxell multicolour disk (10)

£995

4MBx8Simm

£150

Golden Image Optical Mouse

£39

8372 Fatter Agnus

£49

Power Mouse

£15 .

A3000 Static Column RAM

£28

An prices include VAT. delivery and are subject lo change

All trademarks acknowledged

Spectti:aiions art igbiecnocr-angtw-thout "otic*

POWERCOtVPUTINGLTD
Unit 8 Railton Road Woburn Road Industrial Estate Kempston Bedford MK42 7PN

Tel: 0234 843388 Fax: 0234 840234

Next day delivery £4 50

TfL JHttt

FA l|l

tCOWWT#*CMtrT4 i i*iO^-.4*^ «MmO|Mt4t«QIM

U -** K U4CH0 -tAHtUMI

TIL |l)4H?l>Mlll>fttl--FAXt1I*)m4»

***• CWK'TMC f%Cv«4S to if i !*.*#».
H 411 H*t

irV»#*V#4t*

EXHIBITORS INCLUDE: SUPRA CORPORATION ■ GREAT VALLEY PRODUCTS - SUNRIZE INDUSTRII

Amiga Shopper's sister magazine Amiga Format is proud to
World of Commodore Show. Held in Earls Court II from Frid

A very different kind of

computer show

Professional power This country has never seen an event which
showcases the power of the Amiga as spectacularly. If you've heard
about the size of American shows then you know what to
expect. Prepare to be impressed.

Question and Answer sessions throughout the
show will feature Amiga Shopper's own panel of
experts and the technical staff of Amiga Format.

Incredible bargains All the best Amiga offers
are here! Packed to the very rafters with
incredible deals. You won't find cheaper
software and hardware anywhere. Load up
with the very best for your Amiga - and at the
best possible prices!

CDTV City Just what is CDTV7 What can you
do with it? What software can you buy?
Discover exactly what the future of Amiga
computing holds in the CDTV City.

Multimedia Theatre Commodore has attracted
some of the biggest names in computing to

demonstrate their stuff. See what the Amiga is really
capable of!

Meet the programmers Imagine hearing direct from the
leading programmers: just how do they do what they do? Imagine
no more: these seminars will tell you all you need to know.

And also... Fistfuls of competitions. The latest leisure software. A creche

The future of the Amiga is in Earls Court

NEW DIMENSIONS - MIRRORSOFT ■ MINDSCAFE - ELECTRONIC ARTS ■ PANDAAL - VORTEX

S - NEWTEK ■ NEW HORIZONS - DIGITAL CREATIONS - MICRODEAL - BITCON DEVICES - RGB

host the exhibition of the year, the
ay to Sunday, November 15-17

AMIGA presents

Co***

Where, when and how

Where Earls Court II, heart of London
When November 15-17 1 991
Times 9am-5.30pm November 15-16;

9am-4pm November 17

Cost Adults £6, under 1 4s £4

(but see the special Early Booker Offer)

Who'll be there? Commodore, Amiga

Shopper, Amiga Power, Amiga Format, all

the major hardware developers, dozens

of software publishers, bargain- F^jE
offerers, leisure publishers and
anyone who's anyone in the world

of the Amiga.

You want to get the best

bargains for your Amiga?

Get along to Earls Court

on November 1 5-1 7

EARLY BOOKER OFFER: SAVE TIME, SAVE MONEY

The World of Commodore will attract
tens of thousands of people, so avoid
the queues by booking your tickets in
advance.
And you II even save money at the same
time. Just fill in this form to make your life
much easier,

YES I would like to have my tickets early, avoid all the
queues and save £1 .05 on every ticket, please.

Number of tickets Adult {at £4.95 each)

Under 14s {at £2.95 each)

Total payment

Method of Payment (please circle) Access Visa Cheque PO
Credit Card number Expiry date

CREDIT CARD HOTLINE 051-356 5085

Please make all cheques payable to WORLD OF COMMODORE

Send this form to

World of Commodore
PO BOX 2
Ellesmere Port
South Wlrral
L65 SEA

WARNING: This offer closes on 8.1 1.91
Postcode If you don't want to cut up this magazine, photocopies are fine.

■ GASTEINER ■ POWER COMPUTING ■ HISOFT ■ DIGITA ■ HB MARKETING ■ PRECISION

ALi AMIGA PRICES NClUDC VA7 AND UK DfcUVtKY ALL PRODUCTS ARE UK STOCK AMI CAMKY A FULL 12 MONTH (I>MMODOKt WARRANT Y l*UASt
H *«, us BUOKL ORPUUT«G IO CHLLX STUOlS AND * UKKLN I rtOLLS

AMIGA ASOO BASE A500 computer, mouse, tv rnodutator. manuaJrv Workbench, etc supplied tare with no games
software * STOCKS VERY LMTEXD - SO HURRY *

AMIGA ASOO BASE 1MB A500 computer with extra 5CK ram expanson mouse, tv rnodutator. manuola VVorkbench,
BIG auppied bare wilh no games Suttwerp ■ OUR RAM EXPANSIONS DO NOT NVALDATE YOUR WARRANTY »

£290.00

£325.00

AMIGA ASOO ASTRA A500 512k computer mouse tv rnodutator manual Wor k bench etc auppfced with 10
aoftwore utteo tooc A500 #*i ASTRA yej_k Detow for iJetais)

£325.00

AMIGA ASOO 1MB ASTRA Amiga A500 computer. 5BK Ram expanaon with clock and battery back up, mouse, tv
modulator manuals VVorkbench etc ciakn plus the ASTRA 10 games pack nductno, (he fottowmg gamee Datastorm. Dungeon Quest E
Mi «mn Grand Monster Slam, Kid Gtove* Powerplay. RVT Honda Shultte Puck Cafe. Soccer and Tower of

AMIGA ASOO 1MB CARTOON CLASSICS Arriga ASOO computer. 5I2K Ram
bAttery back-up. mouae. tv moo\Jator. manuata Workbench etc rJaka, plus The Stmpsona, Lemninga, Capton

with ctock and
and Oekiw Paint 3

£350.00

AMIGA A1500 PACKS

1mb

3mb

5mb

9mb

AMIGA A1SOO BASE A1500 computer with 2 x 35"
tyuuk CM drives buVt n. and a mouae The A1500 base pack is suppled
with no software

AMIGA A1S00 SOFTWARE con*** of Aisoobase

pack and Ptetnum Worka. D Ptant a Poputoua. Smm Gty Battle Cheat
Their Rnest Hour and 2 books

£500.00 £705.OO £875.00 CtOOO.OO

E65S.OO £850.00 £030.00 £1055.00

NEW!! PROTAR ASOO HARP DISK DRIVES

At last ... high quality hard
disk drives for the Amiga
ASOO. The new PftOTAR
range of ASOO hard dUka
are here ... and just look
at the specifications ...

Accessories

' Perfect colour and fitting to the A500

* 5 times faster than the A590

1 8MB Internal ram expansion fadftty
' 1 year REPLACEMENT warranty

* Auto parking & auto "

Seperate
Sub 24 n
Hard dak

range from 20MB to 160MB
Cache versions
PSl) available

mffisecond access time

PHONE

TODAY FOR

PRICES

ASOO 5CK ram

A500 t5Mb ram upgrade

A690

ckxk £2999
£90.90

hard rjsk orive £284.95

External 3.5" Oak Orive £6500

Gotten Image Hand Scanner £10900

Ampa Stereo Scan Lead £12.99

Amoa 6833 KM Lead £1299

Mouse Mat £350

with Clock

We are now stocking the new PROTAR
5t2K RAM UPGRADE WTTH CUXX
The neat compact 4 chp deagn cornea
complete with box. natructwna on/off
switch and a full 12 month warranty.

PROTAR 5t2K Ram with clock £2999

We atao have imrted stocks of the

gerune Conwnodore A501 512K Ram
Expansion, which we are offering at the
ultra low price of

A501 S12K Ram with dock £39.99

Ptoase specify when 512K ram upgrade
(either Protar or Corrrrioctore) when
orderino from ua

PRINTERS

AM of our pnhters coma with a paraMeJ cable to suit Atari ST Amiga
and ai standard PC ate (other cables avatabie at extra coat . aak
for detalsl AM primers carry a tut t2 montha warranty We only set
genuine UK stock -we do not offer inferior 'grey imports'.

SPECIAL OPP&Tflf For a touted period only we ara of faring a
CITIZEN PRINTER STARTER PACK with ai Citizen printer*. The
pack comprises of 05" ofs* fuM of printer drivers for the ST Amiga
& PC 200 sheets of fantold tractor feed paper. 200 fanfotd tractor
feed address labels. 5 tractor faad envelopes ai for only £1239 on
top of the price of the printer

Qteen 1200 • (9-ptrx H4 cos draft 30 opa MQ7 £139.00

Qtizen Swift 9 (9-p*\ 192 cps draft 48 cpa M.Q7 £199.00

Citizen C4D (24-pin H4 cps draft 48 cpa LQ)

£19900

Citizen 9wift 24 (24-pkx 192 ops draft 64 cps LQ) £299.00

Citizen Swift 24X (24-pin C carriage version of Swift24J £399.00

Star LC10 Mono f9-p*i H4 cps draft 34 opa H.Q) £155 .00

Star LC200 Colour (9-pin 180 ops draft 45 cps HQ) £220.00

Star LC24 10 Mono (24-pax 180 cps draft 00 ops LQ) £216 00

Star LC24 200 Mono (24-pin, 200 opa draft 07 cps LQ) £260.00

Star LC24 200 Cotour (24-psx 200 cpa draft 67 cps LQ) £296.00

Star XB24 10 Mono (24 -pin Professional Seriea) C475 £2

Star XB24-16 Mono (24-pin 1ST version of XB24-K)) £600.00

Canon BJ10E Bubble Jet Gnk jet portable and compact) £289.00
Hewlett Packard Desk Jet 500 (ink M 3 pages per mhute) £459.00

Philips 8833 Mkll
Colour Monitor

The Phieps B833 MkM is the perfect
cokxr monitor for Amiga owners.
With its stereo sound and super
quatty picture it reaMy shows off the
Jut capabalties of the Amiga. The
Phtps 8833 MkM also comes with 12
months an site warranty FREE?

8833 with Arraga cable £24999

Or even better

• •••

We are proud to amasicc the
introduction to our range of the new
VISTO colour mohtoclheVISTO
CUM. mate under official UK

Bcence from PhMpa themaefvea. ay
Identical h every reaped to the
Phtps 8833 MkM Muotig aB inputs

and outputs But VTSTO have
enhanced the looks of the monitor
by replacing the caae with a new
upgraded better looking version. The
vBto CUM has a no quibble 12
month replacement warranty and
cornea free with cabloa tor ai
Amtgas and at Atari STs

VISTO Q4M £248.00

If KXJ WISH K) OQDW W!TH l^ THW Pt JASf SBJO KKJP CHFOU^ W^STAl OROB^

riME BFTWHN OOOAM AND 12 MlDNKJMT. } 1**5 A WfflC AND USf KHJP CPffilT CAPO. OP PW A VttfT ID OUR SHO. CHrS COMPUTER CfNTQt

CHKC0MME*Cm*l53*U6*yMD.

WORTHM, WEST SUSSEX 8HfJ SHB.

r*Li

OPB*NG MON ID »1 CAM K> APM SAT 9JQAM K> 530PM

RNANCE / CPSXT FAOUTIES

PART EXCHANGE CONStDEJrED NEW AND USED EQUIPMENT

AtAPI STE. AMIGA AND PC COMPAT«tE5 ON OISPIAY

AU TYPES Of SOfTWAPE (BUWE5S / lESUIPf)

PtPA«S UNDWTAK8M TRAINING WSWUATON ON-SITE WARRANTIES

SJAIL 'JMJ3U

BEST PR/OS (DEFT AS). S3 RUGBY ROAD.

WORTHm.WEST SVSSEXBHH SMB.

fMl : H/U'J'J) '/•J t J'/lL

0* mm UQ t 7 DAYS A TMPC fOAMM TO 11 MMMDmmfT

AU PRICES INCUJDE I75t VAT AND Wfi DEiVERY AVERAGE 4 - 5 DAYS)
PIEASE ATX) £7 CO fOR NEXT WE«DAY DRIVERY
GOODS USUAUY SENT OUT THE SAME DAY WHFN

CUARED PAYMENI IS RECETVED BETORE 2PM
P850NAI CHEOUB REOURE 7 DAY CIEARANCE

I I

an pi»c«s mduao i; y% vm ona nee UK OeiKwy unteu staled olher^M AR pnc«s / speaflcaTkons / ipecJal often subject to change wtmout notice

U S I c

Casio's CT-470 is a programmable.
12 note polyphonic, multi-timbral
synth which has 220 preset sounds,
features built-in accompaniment and
rhythm sequencing facilities and has
an Integral amplifier and speakers. It

coats around £200, and is Ideal for a

beginner s MIDI system.

ight from issue one. many
of you hove been asking
Amiga Shopper for help
.with MIDI and music

matters. More to the point, you've
been asking tor a beginner's guide
aimed at helping newcomers break
into the world of MIDI on the Amiga.

For my sins this job has fallen to
me but. having said that, this may
not be such a bad thing: I've been
working with MIDI almost since its
inception (in the early 80s) and,
better than that. I've done a lot of my
MIDI work using the Commodore
Amiga. That includes both reviewing
and using vast amounts of Amiga
MIDI software and writing my own
MIDI utilities.

I have also been using MIDI
sequencers (including Amiga
sequencers) in a professional
capacity both in the studio and when
playing live, so I can hopefully throw

Paul Overaa presents part one of
a comprehensive series on MIDI -
what it is and how you can use it

some light on the practical issues as
well as tackling the technical stuff.

Luckily I'm now fully MIDI literate
and have almost a decade of MIDI
work under my belt. This, however,
wasn't always so. and I still
remember very clearly the difficulties
I had in the early days, and the
questions that I couldn't get answers
to. At that time there were few
people around who could provide in-
depth info, but nowadays things have
changed and it is much easier for
people to come to terms with MIDI
and its uses.

My job in this series is to offer
some stepping stones which will help

What is MIDI?
From a purely
technical viewpoint, MIDI is a
communications scheme which
has been designed to allow
standardised messages to be
passed between pieces of musical
equipment (synthesisers, drum
machines and so on). What this
means in practice, however, is
that MIDI allows you to connect
together all sorts of different
pieces of musical equipment
(from any number of
manufacturers) and. provided that
a few ground rules are followed.
they will all work together quite
happily.

That in itself is quite an
achievement, but MIDI has done
far more than this: It has allowed
computers to be used to read,

BEGINNERS
^2>$TART HERE

store, edit and
replay those

messages (acting tike a digital
message tape-recorder) and this
has led to a development which
has turned the music world upside
down... I'm talking here about the
MIDI sequencer.

Not only has sequencing
made life easier for the
competent musician, but It has
opened the doors for everyone
else. It Is no exageratlon to say
that the sequencer has made it
possible for anyone with the
slightest ear for music to play
things that sound good without
having to spend years mastering a
musical Instrument. In many ways
then, the sequencer is to the
music world what the word
processor is to business.

you do just that, and in doing so
provide a thorough introduction to
the MIDI/music arena. I'll also try to
help you avoid some of the snags
and pitfalls that I know exist.

SETTING THE SCENE

Everyone knows about the problems
that either a lack of standards or a
proliferation of non-identical
standards can cause. With the early
video era we had the format
confusion (VHS. Beta. Philips 2000
and so on). Floppy disks going from
8-inch to 5.25-inch to 3.5-inch,
coupled with the adoption of many
different and incompatible formatting
schemes, was another nasty we
could all have done without.

Now. if you think that the above
examples were troublesome, you
should have seen what was
happening in the music business 10
to 20 years ago. Synthesisers -
electronic keyboards with oscillator
and sound circuits that could both
generate and modify complex sound
waveforms, thus mimicking other
instruments as well as creating their
own special sounds - were beginning
to appear. That in itself was great,
but incompatibilities between
different units spoiled things.
Manufacturers would set their own
standards for such things as
oscillator control voltages, and a
direct consequence of this was that
linking equipment from different
manufacturers together was usually
a nightmare. When electronic drum
machines came on to the scene the
situation got even worse, because
many of the manufacturers chose to
adopt different 'standards' for their
timing signals.

The real problem was not that
any of the manufacturers had chosen

"I learned about MIDI through
trial and error. By reading this
series you should find learning
about the subject somewhat
easier than I did!"

Paul Overaa

bad' standards, it was just that they
had all chosen different ones, and
each manufacturer's standards were
only coherent within the realms of
their own products. From the end-
user musicians' viewpoint this
situation was hopeless, because
they ended up becoming 'locked' into
one particular range of equipment
just to get some level of
compatibility.

The compatibility issues were
seen as a threat to what was
expected to become, and in
hindsight has become, a major
consumer industry. After all. would
you nowadays buy a video recorder
that had to have a special tape
format that was only available from
the manufacturer of that recorder? Of
course you wouldn't!

The early musicians using
synthesisers, drum machines and
the like were taking the brunt of the
compatibility problem, and it didn't
take too long before the
manufacturers realised that
something was going to have to be
done. Some real effort needed to be
put into finding a workable, and cost-
effective, solution. Within a relatively

continued on pogc 114

AkAlflA CUADDED A ICCI1C T A hlSIWrMQCn 1001

MUSIC

cenfmvcd from peg* 1 13

short time span some of the major
manufacturers of electronic music
equipment from the States.
Germany. Japan, the UK and a
number of other countries got
together to produce a framework
which aimed to allow all types of
equipment to use a common
communications protocol.

Each eight bit "byte* is sent with a

start bit and a stop bit at a speed of

31.25 kilobaud. That's about one
byto «f MIDI information every 320
millionths of a second.

MIDI eauioment usually has two
or three five-pin DIN sockets. The
terminal marked MIDI-IN is where the
equipment receives its MIDI data,
and the one marked MIDI-OUT is

Sequencer One

ranrror

Gajits' Sequencer One Is a nice, easy to use program that performs well.

The initial ideas, and
experimental trials, all seemed to
revolve around relatively
straightforward instrument-to-
instrument links similar to those
already in use by companies like
Sequential Circuits. Such ideas were
quickly replaced, however, quite
possibly because of pressure from
the high-tech Japanese companies,
and a far more adventurous scheme
developed which involved a fast
serial transfer based on optically
isolated, twisted-pair cable links. The
cables would be used to transmit
digital data using a well-defined, but
flexible, multi-byte message protocol.
The messages would cover musical
note information, dynamics
(measuring how hard keys were
being pressed), internal voice (sound
circuitry) selection and a great many
other things besides. The system
would also cater directly for the
simultaneous control of many
different instruments. The designers
even gave it a name: the 'Musical
Instrument Digital Interface',
nowadays more commonly referred
to as MIDI.

MIDI PRELIMINARIES

I'm not going to start this series by
giving you loads of technical info,
because it serves little purpose.
Having said that, some general info
will help. MIDI, as I've already
mentioned, is a serial
communications standard and MIDI
nit Mages are sent as streams of
puteea (much like the data that is
paiaed through a printer cable).

where data is transmitted. Often
you'll also find a MIDI-THRU socket;
this provides a duplicate of whatever
is being received at the MIDI-IN
terminal. Not all types of equipment
will understand all types of
messages, and nor does every piece
of MIDI equipment send every type of
message, but this doesn't usually
cause much in the way of problems -
provided you know what types of
messages your own particular
equipment is capable of sending and
understanding.

POINTS TO NOTE

There are a couple of general things
that are worth mentioning at this
point because they've been known to
cause confusion...

First. MIDI sends its information
in 8-bit units. As you'll no doubt
know, the computer world calls these
'bytes' and a byte can represent a
letter, a number or anything else -
as long as it can be coded as one of
the 256 patterns which an 8-bit
binary number can represent. MIDI
messages, then, are sent as
streams of 8-bit numbers and it is
the MIDI standard which has defined
their meaning.

And there's more: some of these
MIDI messages can consist of more
than one byte. The first byte, known
as a 'status byte', acts as a
message identifier and enables the
receiving equipment to determine
what type of message is coming in.
Subsequent bytes of the message, if
indeed they exist, are known as
"data bytes'.

How does MIDI distinguish
between status bytes and data
bytes? Well, the designers opted for
using the uppermost bit of each byte
as a flag. Status bytes always have
the high bit (bit 7) set. so these
numbers can range from 10000000
binary to 11111111 binary (decimal
128 to decimal 255). Because bit 7
is effectively used as a status byte
indicator, all data bytes are
restricted to values ranging from
00000000 binary to 01111111
binary (decimal to decimal 127).

MIDI recognises the existence of
16 separate channels and a large
class of MIDI messages, known as
'channel messages', contain a
channel number encoded within the
status byte of the message. Pieces
of equipment can therefore be
selective about the messages they
make use of and the result is that it
is possible to have many different
devices all attached to each other via
a single MIDI communications cable
loop. By setting up each unit to
respond to a different MIDI channel,
all of the MIDI messages can be
sent down the same set of cables
with each unit responding to only
those messages that have the
matching channel number
identification. It's a little like
someone writing a letter to you.
sticking it in an addressed envelope
and posting it - the letter, along with
thousands of others, gets carried
around the postal system but. as far
as reading the contents goes, it is
essentially ignored until it arrives at
your front door - its final destination.
You know the letter is for you
because it has got your name and
address on it; MIDI units know when
a channel message has arrived for
them because it will have a suitable
channel number built into the
message's status byte.

MIDI at the highest level
distinguishes between the channel

messages just mentioned and
messages of more general interest
to the system. All of this will be dealt
with in the fullness of time, but for
now we have more pressing things to
discuss. Namely, what you need to
get started in terms of equipment...

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

Assuming you already have an Amiga
you'll need three other main items: a
MIDI interface, a synthesiser and a
sequencer program. You are also
likely to need a couple of suitable
connecting leads, usually called MIDI
leads. You can make these yourself,
but since they can be bought for a
few pounds from your local music
shop there is little to be gained
financially from doing so.

The MIDI Interface: you'll find quite
an array of these at your local Amiga
dealers and in magazine adverts. A
MIDI interface for an Amiga is quite a
simple affair which plugs into the
Amiga's serial port. Its basic purpose
is to provide suitable signal
characteristics, the signal opto-
isolation and, most important of all.
the right physical connections (a
MIDI-IN. a MIDI-OUT and usually a
MIDI-THRU DIN connector).

MIDI interfaces cost from around
£20 up to over £100. depending on
the facilities provided. Omega
Projects (who can be reached on
0925 763946). for instance, market
a nice little A500/A2000 interface
which is built into a D connector and
costs only £19.95. It plugs into the
Amiga's serial port and comes
complete with two leads which can
plug directly into the MIDI gear (so
you will not need extra MIDI cables).

Some interfaces, including the
one mentioned above, contain LED
indicators which flash when MIDI
data is being transmitted. The LED
indicators are by no means

(Ofltmned on pogt 116

JARGO

BUSTING

Baud - A standard scale for expressing the speed of serial data

transmission. One baud is roughly equivalent to one byte per
second.

DIN connector - A standard plug/socket system found in many pieces of
audio equipment (cassette tape machines, for instance, will
usually have some DIN connectors on the back-panel).

Drum machine - A programmable electronic unit which makes drum sounds.

Kilobaud- 1.000 baud.

Optically Isolated - If a device is optically isolated, light-sensitive devices
are used to allow information to pass whilst not allowing
electrical current to flow.

Oscillator circuit - An electronic circuit, which can be used to generate
musical tones.

Serial transfer - This is a method of sending information as a stream of bits
sent one after the other.

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MUSIC

continued from poge 1 14

essential, but they can help with
fault-finding and are therefore a
useful extra.

The more expensive models may
have several MIDI-OUT terminals and
extra switch facilities - this can
become useful when you start adding
more equipment to your MIDI setup,

but it is really not necessary in the

early stages. Similarly, some of the
more expensive interfaces designed
for the Amiga A2000-type machines
will allow the interface to be fitted
internally, thus putting the MIDI
terminals on the back panel of the
computer. This arrangement is useful
for the serious user because it
eliminates the need for a separate
interface box - but. of course, it is a
convenience which you pay for!

I think the most useful thing I
can tell you about MIDI interfaces is
this: I've never found an Amiga MIDI
interface which didn't do a
reasonable job in terms of
transmitting and receiving MIDI
information. This being so. I
think, at least to

could be imitating an oboe, a cello or
a harmonica. The MIDI standard
contains one particular class of
message which let this 'voice'
changing be carried out
automatically, without you having to
physically alter any controls on the
synthesiser.

The snag is, or rather the snag
used to be. that these clever
synthesisers had to be 'programmed'
to get the right noises out of them.
This, if you were new to such things,
turned out to be a difficult and time-
consuming job. Luckily, all
synthesisers which are on the
market nowadays include a collection
of pre-programmed voices (called
'presets'). These sounds are
available from the moment you
switch on. so you will not need to
worry about synthesiser voice
programming at all - unless, of
course, you want to.

I ought to mention that
nowadays not only
can

The sound circuitry serves two
purposes: first, it is used to create
sounds when you press keys on the
keyboard. Secondly, the sound
circuits can be played' by sending
MIDI data into the synthesiser via
the MIDI-IN socket. Incidentally, it is
possible nowadays to get keyboards
without any sound circuitry, and to
get MIDI-controlled sound modules
which are just the synthesiser sound
circuitry without the keyboard
hardware. The benefit here is
flexibility - you can use a single
keyboard with many different sound
modules, you can change a module
without having to change the
keyboard and so on. (I'll have a look
at the benefits of this type of system
later in the series.)

So. you are no doubt asking how
much is all this gear going to cost.
Well, to be honest a

The Yamaha
PSS-590 is a
typical budget-
priced

programmable
model which has
28 note polyphony,
100 preset sounds
and its own

accompaniment/ rhythm
sequencing facilities and
a built-in amp and speakers. It costs
about £150.

start with, that there is little or no
reason not to use cheapness as the
main criteria for deciding which unit
you should buy.

The Synthesiser: The second thing
you'll need is some kind of
synthesiser, and in case you've
never seen or heard one a few words
are in order. Synthesisers are
electronic 'instruments' which can
create sounds by generating complex
sound waveforms. They can not only
be used to invent new sounds, but
can be used to mimic other
instruments like violins, pianos and
drums. They can even duplicate
sounds like plates smashing, a
person whistling or a helicopter
taking off. Synthesisers can change
from one sound to another very
quickly nowadays - one moment your
keyboard can be sounding like a
violin string section, and the next it

you get MIDI
keyboard synthesisers but
also MIDI guitars. MIDI wind
instrument sensors. MIDI drum pads
and a host of other 'MIDI input'
devices. Most people, however,
whether they are keyboard players or
not. tend to start with - and continue
to use - keyboards for the bulk of
their MIDI work. This being so. most
people who are working with MIDI
tend, to a greater or lesser extent, to
become keyboard literate'. Basically
you need to learn to find your way
around a piano-style keyboard. What
may surprise you is that you
definitely do not, by any stretch of
the imagination, need to become a
technically competent keyboard
player. There is a very good reason
why a keyboard synthesiser is the
best first instrument' from the
beginner's viewpoint: most budget
synthesisers (and many more
expensive keyboard synthesisers
come to that) contain built-in sound
circuitry. In effect you are buying the
keyboard (which is the MIDI input
device) and some in-built synthesiser
sound circuitry.

synthesiser can cost
anything from £50 to £5,000.
Needless to say, as models get more
expensive so the quality of the actual
keyboard, the electronic flexibility
and the sounds they make all get
better and better. What does
surprise many people is just how
good even the cheapest models can
sound: the established
manufacturers like Casio and
Yamaha, for instance, produce some
excellent budget ranges.

One thing you will not get with a
budget synthesiser will be a touch-
sensitive keyboard - that is, a
keyboard which can sense how hard
you press the keys and adjust the
volume of the sounds accordingly.
Notes will be either on or off
(sounding or not sounding) and that,
unless you've got lots of money, is
something that you'll have to learn to
live with. Unless you are already an
experienced keyboard player you are
unlikely to worry too much about the
difference anyway.

Synthesisers built for serious
use, incidentally, do not have any
internal speakers, so you have to
connect them to a separate
I amplifier/speaker system. Having
said that, many budget synths (such

as the Casio and Yamaha units

we've shown as examples) nowadays
do have a small amplifier and
speaker built in to them. If this is not
the case then for home, low-volume
use you should be able to avoid
further expense by plugging the synth
into your hi-fi system.

For MIDI work, synthesisers need
to be polyphonic - that is, able to
play many notes at the same time.
I'd say that eight note polyphony (the
ability to play up to eight notes
simultaneously) ought to be regarded
as the minimum, and I'm mentioning
this because some very cheap
models - even though they are
modern MIDI synthesisers - may only
offer two or four note polyphonic
operation. Quite simply, you'll find
these synths limiting right from the
start so it is best to avoid them.

It is also useful for the
synthesiser to be multi-timbral - that
is. capable of playing more than one
different sound at the same time.
The reason is that multi-timbral
MIDI synths can usually be
programmed so that
different 'voices' (sounds)
respond to information
on different MIDI
channels. This, as
we'll see later in
the series, is a
very useful
facility to
have.
Multi-timbral
synths tend to fall into the
£150-plus range, and one possibility
when looking for such synthesisers
is to search for second-hand
baragains. Musicians are always
changing their equipment and many,
once they've got the MIDI bug, will
decide to change their original
synthesisers for more versatile (and
more expensive) models. This means
that there is always a steady stream
of 'for sale' adverts in the music
magazines and local papers (often
you'll find units at around half the
price of the corresponding new
model). It's an option worth thinking
about if you want to keep initial
costs to a minimum.

The Sequencer: Amiga sequencers
can cost anywwhere between £40
and £400. and nowadays there are
quite a few to choose from. The Disk
Company's Harmoni sequencer is
reasonably priced at £49.95. and is
more than adequate for the beginner.
Gajits' Sequencer One is another
particularly good offering and
although it costs slightly more
(£89.99) it is a worthwhile
investment if you can afford the
extra. There is public domain MIDI
software floating around. I've never
seen anything that I can truthfully say
I'd be happy to recommend.

CMtnvedoH poge 121

116

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

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you'll be able to see rt it is for yourself with this demo. You will also get
a voucher enabling you to buy Wordworth for jus! £99.95 - that's a saving

of £30 on it's normal price!

SEQUENCER ONE In issue 2 of Amiga Shopper we said of this new sequencing
program from Gajits Music Software It has to be the budget priced sequencing
software for the Amiga." Why not find out for yourself and take advantage of our
special voucher offer to obtain a free disk of exciting new samples for use with
Sequencer One?

3D CONSTRUCTION KIT If you've ever wanted to create your own 3-dimensional
worlds then now is your chance with DomanVlncentives brand new game creation
program. It allows you to use Incentive's famous Freescape programming system to
create your own stunning 3D games - without a scrap of programming knowledge.
Don't be fooled though, this is a utility that will put great programming power at your
fingertips.

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d ^ff *^ Spectracolor: The new entry into
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Superbase Professional 4: You have read a
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now here's your chance to try it out for
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.adbroke
Omputing

International

stair"

Read Terms

Wo are tie longest esttlitshed Aon Heater wttteUK Wr have developed an tulansrve
ctBloma service potty wtwtJi means fiat weiesiaM Hatitmuc/Scltvtarc prior to
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u/mtys fie tfieapesl we do endeavtXM to after can&skmty goad service and bachif)
fhis isn't jusl our option we were voted 'Best Dealer 1989 by tie readers of ST Wortd
rn.ig.isi >n not tor 'the numoer d boxes shited". but tor quatty service

On Site Warranty We have recenty extended our backup programme by otlortig on ate
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At pnces are correct at copy date 10/09/91 and are subject to change witiout prior
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orders ever fttO (add CIO tar next day courier detvery At pnces avatanle on Mai
Ordei :J*i> pnces may (ttlot

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Accepts lent cnrtnjgoe

Bottom food

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Star LC24/10
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Push or puJ tractor feed

Paper partang

C199.90
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001* 24P»pmter

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27K buffer axpandBbto to B7K

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Data enable/disable switch
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Now Only £54.99

P9mm*0 add £3 PAP

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butedn boards/commercial ay sterna,
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The phepB 15" FST Tv nctudes remote control Scart nput 60 tuner presets, Bleep trar and
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The Phope 8833 cornea with fuJ P mentoa on ate warranty

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90Cl^4uMb?4rnsr«rddnve.4x Af arilU XT froee*panajis**i

Maee chore of fc &25' ffcppy or tn 35 - ftppy

Commodore Dynamic Total Vision

Wcrtd Veite. Bactranc cook book
Advanced mltery systerm. Baffle storm,
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CDTV In stock now

includes Welcome disk, Encyclopeda

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JJ OW U

?Mb HAM >MPhnl upaadrauta t) VMx 8038/ Cu-PraMsacr

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Mouse U MX toppy arU * 35' Itoppy

Mono VGA £734.99
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Colour S-VGA£839.99

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■1Mb i <AM :M«eal upu^kubb to EMU 32K Fast cache RAM

8036/ Co Pro=esaa9u0^4iM)?4jTtsr*rUarvft4ji AJ ,*■) U

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Mono VGA £1789.99
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Cotour S VGA£1999.99

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Shop A Mat ordor prernsoa 33 Omsk** flood Pnmtan Lancaatwo. PRt PQl'Opan Monday to Safurriay

930am to 5O0pm Phones answered from QOOam Dealer anquneh ivefcome. LadDroAe Computno

Jrrfemanonar e a Bating name of tadbrohe Corrputng Umtod AS trade man\a rec\tormmtt

MUSIC

from pogc 1 1 6

I use Dr T's KCS and Bars &
Pipes Professional for my serious
MIDI work but these are expensive,
heavyweight, packages which are
best considered only after you have
some MIDI expertise under your belt
and can appreciate their versatility.
I'll talk more about the heavweight
options towards the end of the
series, but for the moment I wouldn't
suggest diving in and buying a top-
end sequencer program. Aim for one
of the simpler packages because

you'll find them easier to use.

Irrespective of cost, all
sequencers offer a set of core
facilities thai will allow you to record
MIDI data from your synthesiser and
play it back. They will also provide a
mass of editing options that let you
copy sections of music, transpose
(change the key), add notes, delete
notes and so on. If your timing was a
bit wrong you can even ask the
sequencer to correct ('quantise') the
timing of the notes for you.

All of this can seem like magic,
so it's worth spending a bit of time
seeing exactly what goes on inside a
sequencer program and seeing how
things like key changing and
quantising relates to the messages
transmitted by a synthesiser. As you
now know, the things which make
message transmission possible are
the MIDI terminals that we've talked
about. These terminals transmit and
receive MIDI messages and it is

synthesiser, streams of numbers
which represent such things as the
notes being played, and controller
information, will be transmitted from
the MIDI-OUT terminal. Other types of
MIDI equipment send similar
streams of numbers and because
the meanings of the numbers are
standardised one piece of MIDI
equipment is able to understand
another piece of equipment's
messages. To get one unit to 'talk'
to another you simply use a MIDI
lead to connect them together using
the appropriate MIDI IN and MIDI-OUT
terminals.

When you connect a sequencer
into a MIDI system it is able to 'read'
all of the MIDI messages and record
what is going on as you play.
Sequencers arc not interested in the
sounds being made, it's the MIDI
messages that hold the magic key.
Sequencers come in two basic
forms: the dedicated units, and
those based on computer programs
which can be loaded into any
suitable computer {like the Amiga's
Dr T KCS package). All sequencers
are computer-based, and at the end
of the day both dedicated units and
software-based sequencer packages
will use a microprocessor chip to
store and manipulate the MIDI data
which you (the user) will provide.

When you hit a note on a
synthesiser keyboard three pieces of
MIDI data actually get transmitted: a
status byte which says 'here comes

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All sequencers have the facility to edit data once It has been entered.

these messages which sequencers
use to collect the information about
what you are playing.

When do these numbers get
transmitted? It's usually when you do
something: touch a control knob,
press a key on a keyboard or
whatever. If. for instance, you press
the START button on a Yamaha RX11
drum machine then a 'start'
message (actually the number '250')
will be transmitted, followed by
numbers which represent the drum
notes, durations and so on. On a

a message about a note being hit', a
number representing the particular
note in question, and lastly a number
which indicates how hard the note
was hit (non touch-sensitive
keyboards transmit the fixed value
64 here). The status byte includes
details of which MIDI channel is
being used, so after a sequencer has
read these three pieces of data it will
know first that you've hit a note on
the keyboard, secondly which MIDI
channel you're using, thirdly which
note you hit and lastly how loud the

The Disk Company's Harmont sequencer is fairly cheap (about £50) and is
more than adequate for the beginner.

sound should be (how hard you hit
the key).

This type of information gets
stored initially in the computer's
memory - usually as a simple list of
events. A bit more information needs
to be added before the sequencer
can make use of this data: it needs
to know something about the time
between various events (otherwise it
wouldn't be able to play them back in
the right way). Sequencers can
usually do several things here: they
can use their own 'clock' to keep
track of the time between events, or
they can read an external MIDI clock
which you, the user, must provide. A
MIDI clock is a MIDI message whose
sole purpose is to create a 'system
time' which can be read and
intepreted by connected equipment.

So. one way or the other the
sequencer can recognise the time
interval between the various MIDI
events which are occurring, and it is
therefore able to 'time stamp' each
of the events. This means that the
computer not only knows that you
have pressed a note on the
keyboard, but it has kept a record of
when you did it.

This pattern of events occurs for
all of the MIDI messages which are
j received, and at the end of the day
I the sequencer will have built a list of
all the messages and details of the
times at which they occurred. To
replay such a sequence, all that the
sequencer needs to do is read
through this list of events and play
back each of them at the right time.
To increase the tempo it can play the
events back faster, to decrease the
tempo it does the opposite. Because
all of the event information is in
numerical form, it's easy to modify -
to transpose a sequence upwards by
one semitone it will just add 1 to
each note value, to transpose
downwards by an octave it will
subtract 12 from each note number;
it's as simple as that!

Duplication is just as easy: to
copy a section of MIDI data, the
sequencer will read the part of its
memory which holds the necessary
information, and copy it to another
area of its memory. To quantise a list
of events it will read all of the time
stamps and round them up or down
to fit in with whatever quantise value
you've selected.

Tracks, sequences, complete
songs and so on are all handled in
the same sort of way. and although
specific details of the internal
formats used do vary, the basic
ideas are essentially the same.
Sequencers work with numbers -
reading, manipulating, storing and
transmitting them according to pre-
defined rules. For the sequencer at
least, the world of MIDI is a silent
world of addition, subtraction and
event manipulation - not that far
removed from the operations of a
sophisticated calculator!

CONNECTING UP

In terms of linking together a three
piece 'Amiga sequencer, synthesiser.
MIDI interface' MIDI system there's
really nothing to it. Connect your
MIDI interface to the Amiga's serial
port D connector. Take one MIDI lead
from the MIDI-OUT of the synthesiser
to the MIDMN of the MIDI interface
(this will be the lead that carries data
from the synthesiser to the
sequencer program). Connect a
second cable from the MIDI-OUT of
the MIDI interface to the MIDI-IN
terminal of the synthesiser (it is
down this lead that the sequencer
will send information to the
synthesiser). Switch on. load your
sequencer program according to the
instructions given in the sequencer
manual, and you'll be home and dry.
The sequencer program will be sitting
there waiting for you to do
something. Experiments in this area,
however, are going to have to wait
until next month... O

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

121

GLOBAL COMPUTING

Lucepool Lane, Woodhouses, Yoxall, DEI 3 8NR. Tel: 0543 473131

DISK N BOXES

3.5" Disks DD/DS

each

1-49 35p

50-99 32p

100+ 29p

40 Cap Disk Box - locking -£3.99

80 Cap Disk Box - locking -£4.99

100 Cap Disk Box - locking -£6.99

3.5" Disk Drive
only £49.99

DUST COVERS

Amiga -£2.99

ST -£2.99

Printer -£4.99

Monitor -£4.99

MICE N MATS

6mm Mouse Mat -£1.99

8mm Mouse mat -£2.99

ST Replacement Mouse -£14.99

Amiga Replacement -£14.99

UPGRADES

Amiga 1/2 Meg w/out Clock -£22.95

on/off switch (4 DRam)

.Amiga 1/2 Meg with Clock -£27.95

on/offswitch(4DRam)

1.5 Meg Upgrade -£69.95

Amiga 1/2 Meg w/out Clock -£19.95

on/off 16 Chip version

Amiga 1/2 Meg with Clock -£24.95

on/off 16 Chip version

1Mb Through Board -£54.95

Using existing 1/2 Meg upgrades to a total of 2Mb

LEADS |

ill Modem

Player

...JE3.

-£4.
-£4.

99
99
99

-£4.

* *

F. Leads -£1.

If it's not here - ask!

i CHIPS N SIMMS |]

256Kx 1

95p

256Kx4

1Mb SIMMS

-£3.95

-£43.00

2Mb SIMMS

-£82.00

3Mb SIMMS

-£120.00

4Mb SIMMS

j£ 155.00

RIBBONS

StarLCIO -£2.99

Star LC10 Colour -£6.99

Citizen 120D -£2.99

Amstrad 8256/9512 -£3.99

Commodore -£2.99

(all models)

Internal

Anti-Click-Board

Only

£12.99

Makes the drive
really quiet

visa Visa & Access accepted. All prices include VAT, P&P extra. Please call when ordering

ACCMI

PROFIT FROM YOUR MICRO £14.95

Comprehensive step-by-step 60 page guide

CASHMASTER

Recession? What recession? Make your micro earn Home and business accounts £39.95

• Whatever the make of your micro, you can use it to make
a good income even with only a couple of hours spare
each week. Ideal for those at home/unemployed.

• NOT pie in the sky. make a million before breakfast
nonsense but a true report of exactly the sort of steps
we took ourselves at Intraset.

• Easy, sensible business ideas which can easily be used
by anyone with any micro. Part or full-time.

• No computer expertise required. Earn £££ from home
doing what you enjoy - using your computer.

• Very little capital outlay needed - you probably have
everything you need to start earning

• Learn how to find hundreds of potential customers in
your area who will gladly pay for your services.

• Full step-by-step 60 page book

Phone or Fax for lightning service.

Send cheques or postal orders to INTRASET LTD
FREEPOST, 10 Woodside Avenue,
Clayton-Le-Woods, Chorley, Lancashire. PR6 7BR.

TEL 025 72 76800
Main office & 24 hr order line
Fax 025 72 74753
Helpdesk 0490 3284

Weekdays 3-4pm

All major credit cards
accepted

All prices include P&P and VAT
Overseas orders add £5.00

122

Intraset Ltd

Cashmaster is the easiest to use, most versatile
accounts program yet written for both small business
accounts or home finance. We wrote CASHMASTER
for our own use, out of sheer frustration with other
'easy to use' packages.

Just look at Cashmaster's main features:

• Easy, natural data entry - just like a handwritten
ledger.

• Full vat analysis if needed

• VAT inclusive, exclusive or zero-rated entries

• Unlimited no. of ledgers at one time - limited only

by disc space

• Span any time period - no set period or 1 year limit

• 1 000 User- definable class and 1 000 accounts codes

• Detailed statements by selected Classes and Accounts

• Prof it and loss-type statement

• Tagging of entries for selective reports

• Automatic repeat of entries - standing orders etc
(Yearly, HaH- Yearly. Quarterly. Monthly. Fortnightly, or

Weekly)

• Automatic date-sorting of entries -entries can be

inserted anywhere in ledger

• Output reports to screen, printer or disc file

• Reference field for each entry -Invoke or Cheque no.

• Split and merge ledgers at any time

• All functions available from main program screen -

Class and Account codes visible at all times

• Pop-up running-total calculator with one key press.

The most user-friendly, powerful and versatile
accounts package yet - you won't be
disappointed.

CASHMASTER INVOICING & STOCK CONTROL

Companion to Cashmaster or standalone
program £39.95

• Full Customer Data file - easy to find account records

• Full Stock Data file, Price Lists, Re-order lists

• Full invoicing with user-defined messages

• Full invoke editing, Invoice To & Deliver To fields

• Settlement, No-Return and Line discounts

A standalone, or integrates with Cashmaster for a
fully featured accounts/invoicing package
costing less than a quarter the price of its rivals.

SPECIAL OFFER - both programmes £69.95 Saving
£9.95

THE GRAPHOLOGIST

Handwriting analysis program £49.95

'Uncannily accurate' 8000 Plus Magazine
'Recommended highly for the novice and the
professional' Micromart

From the beginner to the expert, use The
Graphologist to analyse your handwriting, your
partners, friends, business associates, prospective
employees.

With a sample of handwriting, answer the on-screen
questions and follow the instructions. Anything from a
signature analysis to a full IS page complete character
report, including career ambition and hearth through to
sexual preferences and megalomania. Edit this report using
you word processor for a professional presentation.

The Graphologist is a valuable business tool as well as
entertaining and fun. Comes complete with comprehensive
manual of graphology.

DESKTOP PUBLIS

!"JF

■ I

aatascan Professional - <C> 1991 PHL

BUM) 1 . *

• -

*• wr * .•

I .

J*.

* <■

!*-K; "

While the Golden Image hand scanner and Touch-Up software (above) Is
certainly the best hand scanner package currently available for the Amiga,

lEHSfrHiftg*

Type:

Merwry:

Res:

Scaliny:
X Offset:
Width:
Height:

159878

E ljari: iff s/ johnking. dickens

...non-arty people may find the Datascan Professional software (above) that
comes with the Pandaal hand scanner easier to use.

ince we launched Amiga
Shopper, I've received a lot
of letters from readers
wanting to set up
professional desktop publishing
systems based around their Amigas.
The bottom line of all these letters
has been: "what do I need and how
much will it cost?"

Short question, long answer. But
here we go...

First let's sort out the most
expensive bits - the hardware
requirements. A standard Amiga 500
is not good enough, and neither is a
standard A1500 or 2000.

Memory is the first problem. For
DTP you need lots of it - the more
the better, but a minimum of 3Mb.
And at least 1Mb of that must be
graphics (Chip) memory because
while every Amiga DTP package will
quite happily run with only 512K of
graphics memory, when you start to
push the software hard by using
multi-page documents, large text
sizes and lots of ILBM pictures and
structured drawings the software Is
either going to crash or politely tell
you that it has run out of RAM. It will
matter not that you have a zillion
megabytes of expansion (Fast)
memory free, the lifeblood of DTP
software is graphics memory.

The Amiga 1500 and 2000 come
with 1Mb of graphics memory as
standard. All except the most recent
Amiga 500s needs a Fatter Agnus
chip to be fitted and some changes
made to the motherboard to allow it

Jeff Walker discusses the cost and
the kit required to set up a
professional Amiga desktop
publishing workstation

to have 1Mb of graphics memory.
You will need to contact an Amiga
dealer to make these changes for
you yourself is not advisable!

Expansion memory is simple. For
the Amiga 1500/2000 buy an
expansion card with at least 2Mb on
It. You'll almost certainly need more,
but you can buy and fit more RAM
chips later as you need them.

For the Amiga 500, the choice is
just as clear cut. You need a hard
drive for serious desktop publishing,
so buy a hard drive that has room
inside it for RAM chips. Bear in mind
that although 2Mb seems like a lot.
it will quickly get used up. To avoid
frustration at a later date I would
recommend a hard drive that will let
you expand memory up to 8Mb as
and when you need it.

Similarly, while 20Mb is a lot of
storage space, remember that even
a two-page document can take up
200K or more, so 100 of these
documents would fill the entire hard
disk. I suggest that after you've
added up the cost of the other bits
and pieces you need to set up your
desktop publishing system, you
should go for the largest capacity

hard dnve that your budget can then
stand. Don't forget that it's possible
to chain hard drives together in order
to increase storage capacity, so if
you start with (say) an initial 40Mb,
there's nothing to stop you adding
another 40Mb or whatever later.
Look for SCSI (pronounced 'scuzzy')
drives if you think you might want to
add more hard drives in the future.
The speed of the drive won't be
as important to you as how big it is;
a slower hard drive will take perhaps
five seconds to load a large program,
a faster one two seconds or less.

OUTPUT

Before you rush out and buy a printer
you need to decide what you are
going to do with the output. Are you
going to output all the copies directly
from the printer? Are you going to
output one copy and photocopy it s
number of times? Or are you going to
output one copy and send it to a
printing firm for reproduction? And
what about colour?

One thing is certain: using the
printer as a mass production device
is going to take forever, so you can
forget that for a start.

Using the other two methods, we
refer to our single copy (of the page
or whole document) as our 'camera-
ready artwork' or just 'artwork' for
short. Photocopying is fine for short
print runs, although the reproduction
quality will entirely depend upon the
quality of the photocopier and the
expertise of the person operating it.
Halftones, which are any graphics
that contain colour or shades of grey
(photographs, for instance, or
digitised pictures) do not, on the
whole, photocopy well. And for
anything over about 500 copies,
photocopying becomes more
expensive than proper reproduction
(printing), so let's assume that you
are intending to send your artwork to
a printing firm for output.

For monochrome reproduction,
the printing firm will photograph your
artwork and then make either a
metal or a paper 'plate' from the
negative. This Is what is actually
used to print from. The metal plate is

(Mtfewd oa pom 124

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991 1 £*

DESKTOP PUBLISHING

Vofgsslonal Page V2.fi 5199ft Gold Disk Inc. : propaflp .p«g»

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more expensive, because of the cost
of materials and time involved, but
the results are sharper. Metal plates
have to be used if you are
reproducing on to shiny art paper
{like the cover of this magazine, only
a bit thinner). On the other hand, If
you are printing on to normal 'bond'
paper (like that used in a
photocopier) and you don't have
much in the way of halftones, then
paper plates are fine - although they
do tend to wear out much faster than
metal plates - typically after only one
or two thousand copies.

But with bond paper - and here
we get to the crux of all this
reproduction talk - the end results
will suffer by differing degrees from
the dreaded ink spread, or 'dot gain',
a problem whereby the ink from the
printing press seeps a little way
along the tiny fibres of the paper,
filling or part-filling any small white
holes in the artwork (like the
patterns in halftones) and causing
tiny spidery lines to radiate from any
areas of black. None of this is
particularly visible to the untrained
eye. but the overall effect is 'fuzzy'.
The lower the resolution of the
original artwork, the fuzzier the
results will be.

What you have to strive for in
your artwork is sharpness and
blackness. You don't want to give
the printers artwork that is already
suffering from ink spread, and you
don't want to give the printers
artwork that is so faint that they have
to adjust the exposure to get a good
negative - poorly defined text will
have to be exposed differently to
'black' text; while this may blacken
up any text on your pages, halftones
will turn muddier and muddier, and
maybe even come out close to solid

black when the ink spreads after
printing. On the whole, you want to
be sure that text is as sharp and
black as possible.

PRINTER CHOICES

You'll get the best artwork if you take
or send your files to a DTP bureau, in
PostScript format, and get them to
output it on a typesetting machine.

Prices differ, and it is well worth
letting your fingers take a walk
through the Yellow Pages. I've been
quoted an enormous range - from
£20 for a single page down to £6 a
page for a bulk order of 60 pages.

The obvious advantage here is
that typesetting machines output at
a very high resolution (normally
1.270 or 2.540 dots per inch) but if
this option is too expensive you can
get it done on a 300dpi laser printer
instead for less than £1 per page.
Again, you should shop around for
the best prices.

If you're doing so much work that
you think it would be more productive
and less costly to have your own
output device, then you are going to
have to spend between £300 and
£2,000 on it. There are three types
of printer you need to consider -
bubblejet. inkjet and laser.

Bubblejet and inkjet printers work
on a similar principle and both are
plenty good enough for most semi-
professional desktop publishing
needs. The cheapest is the portable

Canon BJ-lOe 360dpi bubblejet at a
little under £300. More than 40,000
of these have been sold since its
launch earlier this year, most of
them (Canon says) to Amiga owners
because of the excellent shareware
bubblejet printer drivers which are
written by Wolf Faust.

The best seller in this market,
though, is the Hewlett-Packard
DeskJet, the latest model being the
DeskJet 500. I've not found a printer
driver for this model yet - if you know
different, please do write to me - but
there is a driver for its predecessor,
the DeskJet Plus.

I use an old Canon 6J-130 wide-
carriage bubblejet to produce
camera-ready artwork. (The BJ-130
has been succeeded by the BJ-330
now. and there is a cheaper A4
model, the BJ-300.) The main reason
I use this printer is because I like to
'bleed' text and graphics off the edge
of my artwork, and I can't do this
with a DeskJet or A4 laser printer
because these devices insist on a
small margin all the way around so
that the ink/toner doesn't spill off
the paper into the machinery.

The artwork produced by the
Canon bubblejet is good enough for
my current needs, but the printing
firm I use still makes noises at me
now and then that I ought to invest in
a laser printer. Why? Because the

<ontin»e<J on poge 1 26

JARGO

BUSTING

Art paper - Shiny, coated paper intended to carry
halftone reproduction by printing from
metal plates).

Artwork -

Bleed

Sometimes known as 'camera-ready
artwork", this is any black-and-white or colour
original prepared for reproduction. Known as
'mechanicals' in the USA.

The area of illustrations, tints or ruled lines
which extends beyond the trimmed edge of a
printed page.

Coated paper - Paper with a surface finished with a layer
of china clay to give smoothness.

Gutter - Usually the space between facing pages
where the fold or binding is, but also the
space between columns on a page.

Halftone - A photograph or other graphic broken up into
fine dots for reproduction.

ILBM - A standard Interleaved BitMap graphic in
Interchange File Format (IFF); the type of
graphic which is produced by most Amiga
paint packages.

Layout - This is the arrangement of text and graphics
on a page.

Une art/Illustration - A graphic made up of lines and
solid areas (that is, no shading).

Monochrome - Black, white, and any shade of grey
in between.

Offset lithography - A process of printing from a flat
surface in which the printing areas are
greasy and the non-printing areas are damp.
The greasy and inked image is set off from
the printing plate on to a rubber 'blanket'
which transfers it on to the paper. The term
is usually shortened to just 'offset'.

PostScript - A system which allows your page to be

output by a professional typesetter. Pager
can be saved as PostScript files and later
printed on PostScript printers.

Spread - A pair of facing pages. Also known as a
'double page spread', or dps for short.

Structured drawing - A type of graphic described in

memory as mathematical vectors instead of
a bitmap. A structured drawing has the
advantage of keeping its resolution no
matter how large or small it is scaled.

Tint -

A grey or coloured area made up of small
dots of a solid colour (or black).

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 # NOVEMBER 1991

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ESKTOP PUBLISHING

coatimd fro* poo« 1 24

output would De blacker and

halftones wouldn't suffer from the
banding effect that any tractor- or
friction-fed device produces.

But if you're thinking about a
laser printer, there's not much point
in going for anything less than one
that understands the PostScript page
description language. The main
reason for this is speed - what a dot-
matrix inkjet or bubblejet takes 20

of their A4 page. PostScript totally
rids you of this driver problem.

The cheapest PostScript laser
printer I've seen costs just under
£2.000. Is this within your budget?
Only you can answer that.

DIVIDE AND RULE

If your needs include colour, then
I hope your pockets are deep.
The first thing you need to
understand is that you don't need a

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minutes to produce, a PostScript
laser printer can output in a tenth of
the time.

And the other major reason for
choosing a PostScript laser printer
over any other is the dreaded printer
driver problem.

The onty laser printer drivers I
know of for the Amiga are Hewlett-
Packard ones. And these drivers
don't work particularly well - the one
on the Extras disk, for example, is
painfully slow and restricts the
printing area to an 8-inch by 10-inch
area of the page. Many's the phone
call I've had from people who have
spent a four-figure sum on a laser
printer, only to get it home and find
that the Amiga won't talk to it or it
won't print the bottom inch-and-a-half

Design for desktop publishing
By John Miles

Published by John Taylor Book
Ventures (1987).

Copy Editing
By Judith Butcher
Published by Cambridge
University Press (1975).

colour printer to end up with a colour
page or document. What you need
are separations' - a process
whereby each of the four primary
printing colours (cyan, magenta,
yellow and black) on a page get
printed on to separate sheets, but in
black-and-white. The printing firm will
photograph the sheets separately
and print each separation one on top
of the other, using one of the four
primary inks for each separation. The
end result is a full colour page.

OK, that's a very simplified
description of the process, but it's
all you need to know at this stage.

The point is that it's not the
camera-ready artwork that is going to
cost you, it's the fact that everything
has to be done three or four times.
Also, you really need to reproduce on
to art paper (the shiny stuff),
otherwise the final page or document
will end up looking dreadful. Art
paper is a lot more expensive than
bond paper. And coloured inks are
expensive too, of course.

With a PostScript laser printer
you'll be able to produce your own
separations - in negative, and on
film, but only at 300 dots per inch -
and thus reduce the overall printing
bill. Again you have the cost of
materials to bear in mind; the laser
printer will use more toner, and

there's the cost of the film for the
separations. And because of the low
resolution, the quality will be poor.
Unless you're producing lots of
colour leaflets or magazines it's
probably best to let the printing firm
take the strain. It's entirely probable
that they'll be able to accept
PostScript files from which they will
be able to produce faster and less
expensive separations. Make a note
to speak to them about that.

The Inexpensive
PageSetter II package
only copes with black-and-
white and grey levels, and
there's no PostScript
output or facilities to
rotate text and graphics,
but because It makes use
of Compugraphlc fonts rt
can produce professional-
looking output to
dot-matrix printers
(Including InkJet, bubblejet
and HP-compatible laser
printers) along with the
best of them. The area to
the left of the page Is an
'art board', where work
can be done before
moving finished boxes on
to the page. The three
graphics on the art board
are structured drawings,
the graphic on the page Is
an ILBM.

Colour separation is a real art.
Mistakes can be very costly. I'm not
copping out when I say that it's best
left to the experts. And the only way
you'll become an expert is by reading
a lot of books on the subject and by
experimenting on an expensive, trial-
ancrerror basis.

INCREASING THE POWER

You don't need a special monitor to
DTP with; the standard Commodore
1084 (or equivalent) will do. Yes,
I know that a multisync monitor and
display enhancer will give you a rock-
steady interlaced display, enabling
more of a page to be seen in more
detail, but there are two drawbacks.
First, the screen refresh will take a
lot longer in interlace mode;
secondly, you've got better things to
buy with the £700 (at least) that this
kit will cost you. Like an accelerator
board, for instance.

None of the Amiga DTP packages
runs particularly quickly. If you're
laying out the odd catalogue or
brochure you will certainly be able to
live without speed-up hardware -
more memory and a hard drive
should be higher on your shopping
list - but for serious DTP you need
more speed if you don't want to
spend half the day waiting for the
program to finish its tasks.

All the accelerators for the Amiga
500 fit inside the machine. You have
to remove the original 68000 chip
and replace it with the accelerator
board, although this is not a difficult
job. (Fitting an accelerator to the
Amiga 1500/2000 is even simpler.
Buy one that's on a card - just like
the RAM expansions - open the case
and slot it in.)

Now, you can say the same thing
about all the kit we've discussed so
far: the more you spend, the better
or faster it will be. If you buy the
cheapest kit you can find, for
heaven's sake don't expect to end
up with a top performance graphics
workstation. Because that - a
graphics workstation - is exactly
what we are building.

There is, of course, a cheaper
and quicker way to do things: don't
build it, buy it ready-built. The
obvious choice is the Amiga 3000
with its 2Mb of chip memory, hard
drive and 68030 central processing
unit (CPU), which will set you back
about £3,000-£4.000 depending on
which configuration you buy - the
more you spend, the faster it runs,
the more memory it comes with and
the larger the hard drive. To turn an
Amiga 500/1500/2000 into
something close to the Amiga 3000
will cost you as much as - or more
than - the Amiga 3000 itself.

But the Amiga 3000 isn't your
only choice. Bytes & Pieces (0253
734218), for instance, sells a ready-
built Amiga Graphics Workstation for
£2.000. It has a separate case and
keyboard {like the 1500/2000/
3000) and comes fitted with a 52Mb
hard drive. 4Mb of memory (2Mb
graphics. 2Mb Fast), a 68030
accelerator, and an IDE display
enhancer (aka flicker-fixer) which
means you can hook it up to a
multisync or VGA monitor if you like.

Now it isn't really the place of
this article to recommend products
from particular retailers, but this
Bytes & Pieces Graphics Workstation
is such extraordinary value that it
would be wrong not to point out that
if you collected all the bits and built
the same thing yourself, you'd end
up spending about £1,000 more.

It's not a complete DTP
workstation, though, because it
doesn't come with a scanner.
Remember that monochrome hand
scanners are not good at scanning
photographs. The results are OK
from an amateur or semi-
professional point of view, but if your
document is intended to impress,
you won't get away with anything
less than a 256-colour (or 256-grey
level) scanner and high-resolution
typesetting machine output - a
300dpi laser printer simply does not
have a large enough dot-matrix to
represent 256 levels of grey to

■

<Mtia»ed on poqc 129

1 4A A*llfjA SHOmR • ISSUf / • NOVEMBER 1991

m^SH

Turn your Amiga's mouse into a

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Do you want to trace photographs and sketches into your DTP or
graphics package? You need Tracey! This precision-moulded
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visual guide of what you are tracing. Fixes to either side of the mouse
for left or right handed use.

* Removable when
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* Ideal for Naksha,
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* Only £7.95
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"This novel little device makes copying pictures easy"

- Amiga Format, Nov. '90

"If the rule that all the simplest ideas are the best is applied, then

Tracey gets the prize" - Computer Shopper, Jan '91

Cheque with order. Trade enquiries welcome.

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Swift Microcomputers Ltd

84 High Str*«t North, Dunstable, Bedford shins, LU6 3MP.
Tel*: (0582) 476257 Fax: (0582)476258

3.5 DS

OD DISKS

£21

100

£33

250 ...
500 ...

C75

. £135

1000..

£265

■

3.5 DS/HD DISKS

£28

100

£54

250 ....

£130

XMAS AMIGA
DEALS!

A 500

Computer

1Mb Ram

Extra Drive

£369

A500

COMPUTER

1Mb RAM

WITH

PHILIPS

CM8833 MK2

£529

0.5 Meg Ram
£20.99

(Add £4 for clock)

PHILIPS
CM8833 Mk2

£219

COMMODORE

CARTOON CLASSlCSl

£365

CLASS OF 90s

£455

CUMANA DRIVE

£59

BITS N BOBS

'V, f«A\l

AMk.A MOUSE f

ASK HIi • Ci

MOMTOH STAND !

DUST COVERS
LC 10 RIBBON
COLOUR
10 36 BRANDED
10 3 S COLOURED
MOUSE MAT

11 iftSPAPEflftOgtm
W0 SHEETS £9

HOW TO ORDER
Visit our showroom with

easy perking or send
cheque or postal order to

PRICES INCLUDE VAT AND DELIVERY. ADD £9.00 FOR NEXT DAY DELIVERY

WeSerue

Canon BJ-10e

360dpi Inkjet printer

with cable & paper

£233.83 (£199.00 + VAT)

Panasonic

KXP1180 134.00
KXP1123 185.00
KXP1124i 252.63

prices inc. VAT cable & paper

Amiga 1 500

with Full software pack
£649.00 inc VAT

CBM1084SD

with cable
£249.00 (£211.91 + VAT)

Philips CM8833 Mk2

with cable
£225.00 (£191.49 + VAT)

1M Cartoon Classics

£369.00 inc VAT

Class of 90's

£439.00 inc VAT

Quantum 52M Disk

+ Controller for A1 500
£329.00 inc VAT

Accessories

Inc VAT

Joy stick/ Mouse twin extension £4.70

3M Joystick/Mouse 3M ext £3.75

A500 Printer lead £7.95

A500 to Scan lead £9.95

Modulator/Disk Extension £10.95

23 Way Plug or Socket £3.45

A500 Dust Cover £4.70

Mouse Mat (thick soft type) £4.95

A501 Memory Upgrade'Clock £42.00

KCS Powerboard 740K & IBM £224.90

Mouse House £2.95

GVP Series 2 with 52M HD £40900

IM Internal 3.5" drive £57.50

A500 Replacement PSU £39.00

"^ Meg Ram No Clock £23.90

Naksha Mouse

With house & mat
£21.50 inc VAT

Squik Mouse
£13.90 mc VAT

1/2 Meg Ram + Clock

£24.95 inc VAT

Phone for Amiga Software catalogue.
Many titles inc. Educational.

of Hampshire
Best for service

Star

LC20

LC200

LC2410

LC24200

LC24200Col

149.00
199.00
188.00
244.40
299.00

prices inc. VAT cable & paper

Printer Dust Covers

Most types in stock

from £4.70 inc VAT

Deskjet 500

H.P. 300dpi Inkjet printer
3 year warrantee

£386.58
(£329.00 + VAT)

Swift 24

2 year warrantee

£245.00 inc vat

Colour kit with printer £24.00

Citizen Swift 9

with cable & paper
£175.00 inc VAT

Citizen 120D+

with cable and paper
£128.00 (£108.94 + VAT)

Cumana CAX354

External 1Mb Drive
£56.95 inc VAT

A590 20Mb Hard Disk

£269.00 inc VAT

DISKETTES

SONY branded

(100% certified error free)

Inc VAT

10 3.5" DS/DD 135 tpi £7.50

50 3.5" DS/DD 135 tpi £32.30

1 00 3.5" DS/DD 1 35 tpt £59.93

1K 3.5" DS/DD 135 tpt £540.50

DISKETTES

SONY bulk
(lifetime warranty)

(100% certified error free)

Inc VAT

10 3.5" DS/DD 135 tpi £5.95

50 3.5" DS/DD 135 tpi £19.80

100 3.5" DS/DD 135 tpi £37.95

250 3.5" DS/DD 135 tpi £88.42

1K 3.5 DS/DD 135 tpi £339.58

50 x 3.5" Disk Box with lock £5.99

100 x 3.5" Disk Box with lock £7.50

Phone for our 48 page catalogue

EDUCATIONAL AND GOVERNMENT ORDERS WELCOME

All products have a 30 day money back & 12 month warranty.

Prices are subject to variation without prior notification.

Established 6 years 3 minutes from M27 Junction 1 1 .

Free parking Open 9 to 5.30 Mon. to Friday. 9 to 2 on Saturday

Postage 94p (80p + VAT) Securicor £6.46 (£5.50 ♦ VAT)

Amiga Shopper Dept.
40-42 West Street,
Portchester, Hants.
P016 9UW
Tel: 0705 325354

UJeSerue

Larger rtems delivered

hy ^ocuricor

J 127

AMIGA

.♦.N*

A50C Options from £314 99

A500 1Mb Cartoon Classics £37999
A500 First Steps U59.99

AT500 Options from £60999

A3000 16Mhz ♦ 40Mb HD. £208999
A3000 25Mhz ♦ 40Mb HD ...£2509.99
A3000 25Mhz ♦ 105Mb HD ..£2924.99
A10WS Colour Monitor .. £254.99
A1950 Multisync . £43999

A590.. Options from £289.99

A1011 1Mb 35' Drive £7999

A50I (tarn Expansion/Clock .£4499
A520 TV MooWo- £24 99

SOFTWARE

SuperRAM 500RX

• SuperRom SOORX for Amiga 500 compute*

• Options of 5 14 ^V> usng 256k Tjp Pom

• Options of 2. 4 ft 8Mb using IMo Zip Ram

• Auto Configuring

• Zero wait states
& hidden refresh

• Amgabu*
pc»-thiouo^

• 2Mb version
pcpuiatea.v

117999

Mic robotics Ram Expansion

• Micropores m501s 512k tas* ram expansion

• Expand your Amiga 500s memorv to 1 megaDyte
interna*

• Battery boated dock
calendar

• On/Off 5.

• Comparable to
Commodore A50t
•Or*|

£2999

Roctec 3.5' Slimline Drive

fTMCnO IBTI

. :. : -v 080k

(formatted)

• ccess time: 3ms
track to fro

• 0.9 inches high

• **e/dbat)*e switch
■ pin pass-through
socket

• Allows connection of
o 3rd cktve

JUST IN
Turbocharge your

Ku7iKM»ff

• Mlcrobotics VXL30 32-Bit

• 68030 based accelerator

• 25Mhz version onry £249 99

• dOMrtf version onry £394 99

• Optional 68882 FPU £130 00

• 2 ft 8Mb 32-Blt memory IBA

Contriver Euromouse

The most responsive mcroswttched upgraded
mouse on the market Comes complete with
mouse pocket and co mes o 10 d ay money back
satisfaction guarantee ™

SUW

Contriver Trackball

Save on desk space w tr ms uftio-responsrve
tiockbol Features three locking drag buttons
ana cames gJQ_dgy_ money bock satisfoction
guarantee

«24«

Seikosha SP-1900AI Printer

• '2/l60cps
Fast/Sid Draft

• 48/40 cp*

Fost/Std NIO

poper parking

• Auto paper load
and elect

• omptote w
Centronics coble

£119.99

Philips 8833/11

• X colour monitor

• 640 * 200 pixels on RGB input

• Supplied complete with cables

• Optional
Wrt/swrvel base

ovolabla

• heeF-lv
Steatm f ighter

£239.99

WOW PftOCf SSOtt TOT

Excellence 2
Klndwords2
Pen Pal
Protext v5
Pro Wrtte v31
Oulckwrlte
Scribble Platinum
Tianswrlte 2

£9995

£30.95

£62 95

£102 95

£IC2.95

£3995

..£4295

£3195

lurbo Text .... £4995

Word Perfect . £19295

Worav-- . €0995

■

Gold Otsk Type each £3195

Outline fonts £99.95

Pageirreom v?1 £14495

Prod* £2i 9i

Professional Paoe v2 J 95

i -

Prodata

5.95

Superbase Personal

£2695

Superpose Personal S

£64 95

Superbase Profesvonot

495

Superpose Professional 4 £25995

"■

■

Oskmaster 2

£4995

G6 Route

$27.95

K-Comm2

£3795

Quoffetoac*

Ouarteroack Toob .

#995

X Copy Profewone

• '495

EWOVPKSMATIQN/T1TUNG

Big Alt Scroller
ftooacost Title' 2
Broadcast Font Enhancer

Home Titter . ...

i y i-**" 1 KXff

Pro Titter

Scolo

Tine Page

TV Show v2

TV Text Professional

Video Effects 3D

Video Tin* 3D

AU0K>,Ml*C

Auaitton4
Bars & Pipes Prof
Dr T s Copyist App
Or U Copyist DTP
Dr T - .eveins
Dr T/s Phantom
Dr X\ To* Cub
Dr rs X-OG
Musk: X

Quartet

Sequencer One

£42.95
...£18995

£109.95

£34 95

£54.95

2695

£18995

...£134.95

£5*95

S*4 9$

£132 95

£7895

£4695
95

'295
£94 95
£219.95
£264 95
C1995
£94 95
-209 95

69995
0695

D5HEET5

]

Advontoge

DG Cak; £27.95

Maxiplan Ptus 851.96

Superplan

ACCOUNTS

Cashcook Combo £47 95

Coshbook ControBei £34.95

il Accounts £21.95

Home Accounts 521.95

Personal Finance Manager £22 95
System 3 £34.95

.U>fi"* 7 - <- ^T

LANGUAGES

3D Construction Set £3995

AMOS £3495

AMOS 3D . £24 99

AMOSCompier £21.95

Devpoc3 Cat

A Base Compter £22.95

£3995

HK*5o*c2 Col

hk* &*nd

*a Awmttor £3

Lattice C v50l 07495

»•?: -. v.y.-y ..

Amoa v*6»cr £9595

Art Deportmerr £55.95

Art Department Pro £134.95

Deluxe Pamt rv Col

Deluxe Print B £35.95
Detu«e Video */Photo*ab .£74 95

Design Works £84.95

Director 2 £97 95

Disney Animation Studto ..£84.95

Draw 4D £14995

imagine £179.95

PIXmote £38 95

Professional Draw v2 £99.95

Real 3D Beginners £127.95

Real 3D Pro Turbo £359.95
Spectrocotour

•

Better Moths 12-16 yrs £19.95

Better Speing Over 8 £19.95

Fun School 2lJnder 6 £14.95

Fun School 2 64 i:4 95

School 2 Over 8 £1495

Pun School 3 Under 5 £17.95

n Schooi 3 5-7 £17 95

Fun School 3 Over 7 £17.95

Was Type

Mogfc Moths *6 yrs 995

Maths Mono 5-12 yn

M Beocon Teaches Typing £22-95

Mego Maths A-ieve :95

ttcro Engtoh GCS £20%

Mao French GCSf

Wcra Moths GCSE

Ptttcty Maths 3-12 yrs

The Three Bean

HARDWARE/PERIPHERALS

Citizen 120D* , £13

Citizen 1240 £194.99

Citizen Swift 9 £187.99

Citizen Swift 24 £28499

Star LC-20 £154.99

Star LC24-10 ... £19999

Star LC-200 1214 99

Star LC24 20D £239.99

Star LC24-20Q Colour V299 99

Cumooa 1Mb 3 5' Drive £69.99

Supra 52Mb HD l/2/4/8Mb Ram Coll
AT Once ... £179.99

Hitachi Camera ft Lens £22499

DigMew . vv9.99

Vki Amoa 4 Vk» Chrome.. £11499
RGB Sputter >99

Golden Image Scanner i v .99
Mingen £10299

unnet Modem

Supra 2400 Modem., from £129.99

AMAS

Audio Engineer Plus £179.99

Mastenound £2999

Perfect Sound .£49.99

Soundmoster £10999

Golden Image Mouse £19.99

Naksha Mouse £2499

Universal Monitor Stand ....£9.99
Universal Printer Stana .. £6.99
Centronics Printer Cable £4 99
RS232 Cable £9.99

Scan Coble.. £999

35' 80 Capacity Bo. £699

10 x Sony Bute 35* £599

50 x Sony Bulk "W £2499

100*SonyBufc35" £4499

Please cat us for a

price en any hardware.

software or peripherals

you may require but

can't see

PltcwrTK^cheaue3/pc«tac*ck»p ai items subject to avalab*v.

AJ pncesandrnanufrxturersspecAcolic^
AI prices ndude W and UK de^ery . E&OE AI tirademarks ackriowtedged

Dept AMS 1 1 , 20 Bridge House, andge Street. SuwJertond. SR II TE

Sc*esW:<091)51O2666EnqulhBslei (W1)5T0 2777 fox: (091)564 I960

Goods are not offered on a trial basfc. Goods are offered for sale subject to our conoWons of sate

CoHers welcome. Our

hours of business ore

9.30 tin 5.30 Monday tc

Saturday.

DESKTOP PUBLISHING

continued from po^« 176

professional standards; the results
wilt be muddy and will be made even
muddier by the reproduction process.

But don't waste your time and
money on a colour scanner unless
you're looking for really high-quality
(and expensive) end results. If you're
going to use a scanner only for
getting black-and-white diagrams on
to the page (line art, in other words,
like that cartoon of me on the first
page of this article) then you need
nothing more than a monochrome
hand scanner.

I use the Golden Image scanner
(reviewed in Amiga Shopper issue 5),
which comes with the excellent
Touch-Up software - a sort of black-
and-white DPaint-cum-Professional
Draw - but you might also like to
consider the Pandaal scanner
{reviewed in issue 3) which comes
with simpler software.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

The hardware side of things is a real
jungle because there is so much to
choose from. Software, though, is
much easier to sort out. You have
just four choices for your main DTP
package: PageSetter II, Professional
Page, PageStream or Saxon
Publisher.

If you are never going to use
colour and don't want PostScript
output, then PageSetter II deserves
more than a casual glance. Despite
its cheap price tag, It is basically a
black-and-white version of Its big
brother, Professional Page. The main
restriction is that PageSetter II
cannot rotate text or graphics. If this
isn't a problem then I happily
recommend that you start with this
package. I've seen it selling for less
than £50 at computer shows.

But don't get PageSetter II mixed
up with the earlier incarnation of the
same program, PageSetter (without
the IF). The two programs couldn't be
more different. The original
PageSetter was next to useless for
even amateur DTP, whereas
PageSetter II can produce results
every bit as good as programs
costing five times more.

Saxon Publisher is the new boy
in town. It's got no track record and
is still on version 1. which can only
output to a PostScript device. A
promised upgrade will support
Compugraphic fonts and dot-matrix
printers, but I've yet to see it. Expect
an in-depth review as soon as the UK
distributors send me a copy. (At the
time of writing this was "next week",
so hopefully the review will appear in
the next issue.)

Professional Page and
PageStream have been around for a
few years and both are into second
versions. I've taken a lot of flak
recently about my opinions of
PageStream (slow, and buggy

graphics handling) and Professional
Page (faster, and buggy text
handling), and I'm not going to start
the argument up again now by
recommending one or the other.
Read the exhaustive reviews in
Amiga Shopper issues 1 and 2 and
make your own mind up.

The truth is that neither
Professional Page nor PageStream is
of a true professional standard. For
example, on a professional system
you would have facing pages on-
screen (a 'spread'), and if you placed
a graphic in the middle between the
pages (across the 'gutter') the
software should be able to
automatically duplicate and split the
graphic correctly so that one half is

Once you get used to the

way PageStream works It's

as easy to use as any other

DTP package. But the

harder you push

PageStream the more

fragile it feels, and some of

its claimed 'advanced'

features either crash the

Amiga or don't work

properly - particularly

anything graphics-related.

In 16-colour Interlace mode

PageStream crawls along

at an unacceptably slow

pace, even with an

accelerator. It doesn't have

an art board as such, but

you can do temporary work

in the grey-shaded 'bleed

area', shown here to the

right of the page.

message has to be the main thing -
your document is going to be read,
not framed and hung on the wall.

Let's not get into a typography,
typesetting and design lesson here -
that's what the books are for.
However, don't imagine that
thousands of pounds-worth of
specialised hardware and software is
going to turn you into a desktop
publisher overnight; it won't, it's a
skilled job which will have to be
learnt. You can save a fortune by
designing and laying out your own
publications, but you'll have to invest
lots of time and effort - don't expect
the software to do it all for you.

On top of the DTP software,
you'll almost certainly need some

PostScript laser printer - after all. if
you need really professional-looking
output you can go to a DTP bureau.
So budget for an inkjet printer at
about £600.

The decision on which
accelerator board to buy is perhaps
the hardest - perusing the adverts
reveals prices ranging from under
£200 to almost £2,000. At the
present time, for example, it would
be worth waiting for some reviews of
the new Microbotics VXL30
accelerator, which has a high
specification and is selling for about
$400 in American magazines.

A hand scanner should cost you
about £150. and the purchase of
whatever DTP software you finally

on the left-hand page bleeding off the
right edge, and the other half on the
right-hand page bleeding off the left.

This is a useful design technique
for anything that has facing pages,
like a booklet or a brochure or a
magazine, and doing it by hand,
which is how both Professional Page
and PageStream force you to do it,
takes time and is error-prone.

Nevertheless, these are the best
we've got. I use Professional Page to
produce a monthly magazine. Other
Professional Page users often ask
how I do some of the things I do.
which only goes to show that most of
the real restrictions are inside your
head, not the software.

That may sound a little arrogant,
but if you don't have a background in
design stick some books on your
shopping list because page layout
isn't like painting pictures - there are
tried and tested techniques which
work, the ultimate goal being to get
the message across either clearly, or
clearly and with impact. Sure, there's
a lot of artistic license involved
behind the message, but the

extra fonts. PageStream comes with
about 20, which will be enough to
get you going, but Professional Page
comes with only two, so you'll have
to buy the additional Outline Fonts
pack (about £100) which contains
35 more Compugraphic fonts.

TAKING STOCK

So, given all the foregoing
information, let's have a look at a
possible system setup. (The
following prices are very
approximate, and should only be
taken as a guide.)

First, upgrading your Amiga 500
to 1Mb of graphics memory will cost
about £100, and 2Mb of expansion
memory will be about the same sum
again - £100 or so. To save slightly,
you can put that 2Mb into, say, a
40Mb hard drive - which should run
in at about £400. You will need to
get a monitor, too - the standard
Commodore or Philips model costs
around £200.

Unless you really need it. you'd
be better off buying an inkjet or
bubblejet printer, rather than a

decide on. along with some extra
fonts, will cost you somewhere in the
region of £300.

So, depending on which
accelerator you buy, that makes a
grand total of somewhere between
£2,000 and £2.500 for the system.

The alternative upgrade route
was to buy a complete Graphics
Workstation (with more memory, a
bigger hard drive and a flicker-fixer)
for £2.000. Add to that the cost of
the monitor, printer, scanner and
software and this route will cost you
just over £3.000. But remember that
this way you have your A500 spare -
to let the kids play on or to sell,
recouping a few hundred pounds.

Either way. you will have a
system with which you can desktop
publish with results close to true
professional standards. At a later
date you might want to buy more
memory and a larger hard drive, and
perhaps a PostScript laser printer
(prices seem to be falling every
month), but this can wait until the
money that you'll be making from
DTP starts flowing in... (&

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991 1 4A

rwwMflaflM

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nn rr r innrtftfftftnnninrnif i n'

130

AMAZING OFFERS ON
3.5" DSDD DISKS

25DSDD 135 tpi 11.95

50 DSDD 135 tpi 21.95

75 DSDD 135 tpi 31.95

100 DSDD 135 tpi 37.95

ALL DISKS SUPPLIED WITH LABELS AND ARE 100% ERROR FREE 2 FOR 1 GUARANTEE

pttWWWftGW-y

.CCC^wO

r 3.5" HIGH DENSITY DISKS

10 9.95

25 23.75

50 39.95

100 59.95

(ALL DISKS 1 00% ERROR FREE

INCLUDES LABELS)

■ ■

5.25" DSDD DISKS

30 9.95

50 13.95

100 24.95

200 46.95

(ALL DISKS 100% ERROR FREE
INCLUDES ENVAABELS)

*K*:«vKvKv:*vfr^^

5.25" DSHD DISKS

30 18.95

50 21.95

100 36.95

200 68.95

(ALL DISKS 100% ERROR FREE
INCLUDES ENV/LABELS)

riViY'VrnYiMV'nYmV.hVh.Vi^' 1 ''

DISK STORAGE WWES

&1* 100 CAPACITY. »JSJjB.

ill^ao capacity..

3.5- 50 CAPACITY.
3.8*40. CAPACITY...
■$.OT 100 CAPACITY.. A95
525' 50 CAPACJTY„.4,$5

*** OFFER *■**]

GENUINE SONY 3.5" DSDD BULK DISKETTES

25 12.45 200 79.95

50 22.95 500 179.95

1 00 41 .95 1 000 339.95

(ALL DISKS 100% ERROR FREE AND ARE SUPPU60 WITH LABELS)

RAINBOW DISKS

(RED.GREEN/faiOW.OWGf .BLACK.WHfTE COLORS AND OTYS Of YOUR CHOICE)

ABOVE BOX PRICES IF
ISING A QUANTITY
DISKETTES
5-2T OR 3.5- 10 CAP BOXES

fl 4.50

3.5" DSDD DISKS

25 DSDD 13.75

50 DSDD 26.45

100 DSDD 44.95

200 DSDD. 84.95

5.25" DSDD DISKS

25 DSDD 10.45

50 DSDD 18.95

100 DSDD 34.95

200 DSDD 67.95

FOR 7.50

SW:

(ALL DISKS 100% ERROR FREE AND ARE SUPPLIED WfTH ENV /LABELS)

SSH

.'""yiMMHMlHllMlVl'tllM^Tt-illlll-lllinHlnl^S'll

tnkVt\rA.\Y|-AVl t it ■

SUALITY

*»**:*♦***"••**

..2.50

MOUSE POCKETS

3.5" CLEANING KfT.....

..-1.50
5-25" CLEANiNG KIT.. ™Iji

.3.95

AMIGA DUST COVER .3.95

2 PIECE PRINTER STAND ....5.95

**++*• + ** r*»fi*4i-«A«M*»; *Jf

iftiwu^w^tv m ^wwnwnv

\VV.

w ,

CUM ANA
EXTERNAL DRIVE

ONLY 59.95

I.U I I .UI.I.M.I.I. I .I

AMIGA 51 2K
EXPANSION BOARD
WITH CI

only 29.95

without clock

EsWv

>ffi'X*>WW

,vn m\ vrvrvvifirnvvnnvn^xfrmrrrrwrr rm r\

STACKABLE
STORAGE BOXES

BANX BOX

HOLDS 90 3.5" DISKS

CAN BE STACKED
HORIZONTALLY AND VERTICALLY

1 9.00

3+ 8.50

5+ 8.00

■■ ■:•:■;.

\m mmm .

v : >: : : : : : :

I ACTION REPLAY H

ONLY 57.95

POSSO BOX

HOLDS 150 3 5" OR 70 5 25" DISKS
CAN BE STACKED

HORIZONTALLY AND VERTICALLY

ONLY 15.95

tin nr>i ■ itn ■ Vnnvrmhi iVimiviitti i * m

JOYSTICKS

QS138 MAVERICK
SPEEDKING STD
SPEEDKING A/F
NAVIGATOR
ZIPSTICK STD
ZIPSTICK A/F
COMP PRO. STD
COMP PRO. A/F
MANTA RAY STD
MANTA RAY A/F
STING RAY STD
STING RAY A/F
QS131 APACHE
QS135 PYTHON 1

&y*SV»VAVrfVVA^\\V\\VS\SSV<VhSSNV*\\SVAVAV*NSVNSSV^*-A%%

■

WE STOCK A RANGE
OF R»BONS FOR

MANY

*:?#

IlLIJ 111 I 1 I I

linn i

:■■:■:

w-Kw^

:■ : : ■

HOW TO ORDER

wmm

0782 20822F

BY PAX

0782 281506

BY POST

MEDI

COMPUTER SUPPLIES LTD

UNIT 3

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STOKE ON TRENT

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AU. PRICES INCLUDE W

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C9.00 NEXT DAY
(UK MAINLAND ONLY)

REMEMBER !!!

WE ONLY SELL HIGH QUALITY
DISKETTES.OUR 3.5" DISKETTES

ARE MADE BY K.A.O AND OUR
5.25" DISKETTES ARE MADE BY
STOAMA.WE DO NOT SELL SUB

STANDARD DISKETTES FROM
THE FAR EAST.

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BUSINESS

sing computers in
business requires you to
do more than just plug in
and switch on the
machine. It requires thought,
planning and. wherever possible, a
high degree of data redundancy
(never keep all your eggs in one
basket or all your data on a single
hard disk). Moreover, it can also
necessitate a lot of manual work -
collecting and collating the data into
a machine-readable form.

The Beer Test (see below) is a
typical example where computers are
used to amass and quantify a huge
amount of data. Although the whole
thing could have been done
manually, it would have taken many
hundreds of man-hours.

UQUID ASSETS

One of the first questions to ask is
"what do people drink and how can
they be encouraged to drink more?"

THE BEER TEST

The Beer Test is a survey of the
drinking habits of members of a
north-eastern club. Aimed at
improving the club's services, it
was described in detail in last
month's issue. For back issue
details, see page 118.

The survey can only determine what
people drink - not the quantity they
consume. However, the latter can
easily be discovered by analysing the
stock levels of each. By coupling the
two, it is possible to determine, for
instance, which bars need which
pumps. Consider this:

There are three bars (serving
areas). Each has two pumps each for
the most popular beer and lager, and
one each for the next most popular
beer and lager, plus a smattering of

Mark Smiddy shows how to
present the results of the survey
he conducted last month in an
easily digestible form

others. Using simulated figures, let's
imagine the following stock levels:

Barrels

Pumps

per week

in bars

Beer A

Beer B

Lager A

Lager B

This seems like a fair assessment
purely on the stock figures. However.
there is a wider issue to consider -
how many people are drinking each
beer and lager? In pubs, where
everyone is equal (except the
regulars, who are more equal than
the others) most social drinkers will
have experienced this scene:

Customer: "Two pints of lager and a
packet of crisps please. Er, two pints
of lager and a packet of crisps
please. Two pints of lager and a
pack..."

Bar person (consulting watch with a
grim smile): "Sorry mate - last bell's
gone!"

This conversation is likely to be
followed by a colourful exchange
which has no place in the pages of a
serious magazine like ours. However,
the situation can be partially relieved
by the number of pumps available
and their positioning both in the
building and on the bar. If we
assume that a good barman can, on
average, serve a customer in one
minute using one pump, and 45
seconds using two. consider this:

Case A: Dave and Mike are nightly
regulars to the bar area. Each
consumes 4 or 5 pints of beer 'A* in
a typical three-hour session.
Between the two, they will occupy
two pumps and one staff member for
about eight minutes.

Case B: Bill, Ian, Ted and Cliff are in
the lounge three nights per week and
all drink beer 'B\ In their typical
three-hour session each will
consume two or three pints of their
chosen brew. Drinking in rounds, in a
typical session they will occupy one
pump and a member of staff for
around twelve minutes.

The folk in Case A will account for far
more sales than those in Case B in
raw terms. However, the people in
Case B actually use more bar and
pump time. Multiply that by a typical
cross section of regulars and you get
long queues.

Of course, a good bar manager
can judge this situation before it
occurs and increase staffing levels to
cope. Nevertheless, computer
analysis can aid their decision by
helping to predicting where and when
the log-jams are most likely to occur.
A human being must make the final
decision, though, because dozens
other minor factors must be
considered: from the time of day and
the weather to what's on the
television that night!

ASKING QUESTIONS

All the information necessary to
answer the computer side of this

TABLE 1

■

•0

D 1 » 1 '

G I "

101

Samson drinkers

average over all figures

■
■

102 Monday

1 j

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

103

Bar

■

104 Lounge

105

Room

■"■" ;

■

--■■■■>»■

MP —

■

■
■

■

conundrum is held in the database -
now we need to decide how to get at
it. The best way to do this is break
the question down into its
component parts. Here is the
question in a more detailed form:

"What proportion of regular members
drink the two most popular beers
and whereabouts do they prefer to
drink?"

I've highlighted the meaningful parts
of the problem - those where a
database query can be applied. Next.
we must decide how best to present
the information - because even with
just a couple of variables there are
several ways to display the resultant
analysis: and this in turn affects how
the question should asked.

There are three ways to graph
this data, depending on what you
want to show; or. depending on
circumstances, what you don't!

• A pie chart can show the amount
of each type of beer drunk in each
room, using either the room or beer
names as segments. However, a
separate chart must be prepared for
each. For instance: the spread of
beer 'A' drinkers in each room on
one chart and another for the spread
of beer 'B' drinkers.

• A bar chart can show the same
data as the pie charts but with all
the information on a single display.

• A stacked bar chart shows the
same as the normal bar chart - but
the overall information is easier to
see.

continued m pogt 132

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1 991 I *1 1

BUSINESS

FIGURE 1 - SAMSON DRINKERS

'/> Lounge
= Concert

Saturday

33 or ov»r

Age Range

The raw results, although predictable (lagers being the preferred young
person's brew) can be deceiving at first.

FIGURE 3 - DISTRIBUTION BY AGE

018-24 125-34 □ 35-44 145-54
□ 55 or over

This chart clearly shows the split age range of this population - as you can
see younger people are certainly In the minority.

FIGURE 4 - MAGNET vs SAMSON

Adjusted by Response

*'*1

V *

I * ^v *

■

^fc ■

' \ *

^^^

^ A~>

,.'•"

*"/\ ;

.•*

■ 1 i '

,..-•-"

• ■

t ■ 1

Samson

.t* t •• • 4 .

"'* -■■*..:».... — *

lt-34

25-34

43-34

33 or pvtr

33-44

Age Range

Once the graph Is recalculated according the response in each age group, a
different picture starts to appear.

froinpogt 131

So far, so good - but a graph can
only be produced from data and the
data is still in the database: hence
Listing 1. just one of many report
programs written for this feature.
This searches the database and
finds all the relevant data regarding
drinkers of Samson (a strange
Northern beer) among the Sunday
regulars. One surprisingly weak
feature of Superbase Pro 4 is the
inability to define 'GROUP'
statements according to a variable -
the significance of this will be
discussed later.

PROGRAMMED REPORTS

The data produced by the program,
of course, proves very little because
the sample is highly selective -
although this can be corrected later
in the spreadsheet. Here's how
Listing 1 works - some knowledge of
Basic or Superbase's DML will be
helpful to understand the program:

1. Opens the single (flat-file)
database containing all the data.

2. Defines the start of a report and
instructs Superbase to suppress
output of actual field data. (All we
want is the totals.)

3.. .5 Outlines and displays the
report heading.

6. Introduces a data grouping.
Groups are used extensively in the
Beer Test reports to aid the selection
of test criteria. The first group in this
report forces Superbase to select
data day-by-day. In this case we are
switching on Sunday's field which
contains one of three values
according to which room the member
was in (unwanted values are filtered
later). As mentioned previously, this
must be a field name - not a variable
containing a field name. This makes
programming laborious and repetitive
because a separate program must
be written for each day.

7. Prints a blank line!

8. Opens a construct in which
Superbase can be programmed each
time the data in the field - Sunday -
changes. This can be one of several
values, but we are only interested in
"B" for Bar . "L" for Lounge or "R"
for the Concert Room. The other
values - nights when the member
does not attend, for instance - are
filtered out at line 33.

9... 13. Defines a case construct
which is used to translate the single
letter held in the database to

continued on page 1 34

LISTING 1 • LISTING 1

1.
2.

3.
4.
5.
6.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22. •

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

OPEN FILE "FastBench2.0:SuperbasePro4 /CLUBDATA"

REPORT SUMMARIZE

HEADING

? <?9; "Sunday Samson drinkers by room"

END HEADING

GROUP Sunday. CLUBDATA

BEFORE GROUP Sunday . CLUBDATA

SELECT CASE Sunday . CLUBDATA

CASE "B":room$ » "bar":? "BAR":?

CASE "L":room$ = "lounge":? "LOUNGE":?

CASE "R":room$ = "concert room":? "CONCERT ROOM":?

END SELECT

END GROUP

AFTER GROUP Sunday . CLUBDATA

? G60""* # **"

? 935"Total using ";room$;(?60&]4; COUNT

? 960"*****":?

END GROUP

GROUP Samson . CLUBDATA

BEFORE GROUP Samson . CLUBDATA

SELECT CASE Samson . CLUBDATA

CASE "2": s$ = "Irregular"

"Occasional

"Regular"

CASE "3":sS

CASE "4": s$

END SELECT

END GROUP

AFTER GROUP Samson . CLUBDATA

? •$;" Samson drinkers in M ;room$;@60&]4; COUNT

END GROUP

SELECT Sunday . CLUBDATA, Samson . CLUBDATA

ORDER Sunday. CLUBDATA, Samson. CLUBDATA ASCENDING

WHERE (Sunday = "R" OR Sunday * "B" OR Sunday * "L") J

AND (Samson * "2" OR Samson - "3" OR Samson = "4") J

AND SundayReg = "Y'

END SELECT

rfl

The Samson report program for Sunday regulars determines who drinks
Samson and their usual whereabouts. The output Is refined for easy
Input to the spreadsheet, even though not all the results are used.

I 44 AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

3*3

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U S I N E S S

coatiMwd (rM poge 132

something meaningful. The sub-
headings introducing each section
(data group) are also displayed here.

14. Closes the 'Before Group'
statement. In many reports this
would be followed by display

instructions for the field data. In this
case, since we only require summary
data, this part is omitted.

15. ..19. Works in a similar manner
to the 'Before Group'. This part
executes when the data group
changes. For instance, when
Sunday's contents change from "L"
to "B". At this point the total number
of records matching the filter criteria
since the last change is displayed.
20... 30. These lines are more or
less identical in function to the
preceding ones. Here, the type of
beer is defined as a sub-group of the
room. In this way the drinkers can be
categorised by the location and
amount consumed.

31. Tells Superbase which fields to
process...

32. ...and how to process them.
This line ensures that the data is
sorted in the correct order. If
precedence were given to the
Samson field, the report would
become mixed up as the higher
priority Sunday field got mixed up
with the embedded Samson field.
The simple rule of thumb is: sort
ascending fields from right to left in

the order they appear from top to
bottom.

33. Sets the filter conditions. This
cures several problems in one go.
First, the Sunday field is checked for
real values; next the Samson field is
checked to eliminate non-Samson
drinkers; finally, the SundayReg flag
is checked to ensure this data only
applies to Sunday regulars. This part
of the program can be easily
changed to either include everyone
or even prompt for a user response.

34. Terminates the program.

Table 1 on page 131 is what a
complete week's worth of data looks
like after it has been inserted into
the sheet. The data represents the
results from seven different reports -
in this raw form it is easier to follow
than the reports. However, using the
spreadsheet it is easy to gain extra
figures such as the total drinkers in
each room over the whole week (the
rows) and the total for each day (the
columns). The results can then be
charted as in Figure 1. A similar thing
is then performed for the other
popular bitter. However, these are
just the raw un-weighted figures. The
graph is only a rough guide to
people's drinking habits in the
survey. If there were the same
number of people in each group,
then this chart would also give some
idea of individual preferences. Figure

• ,75

FIGURE 5 - DRINKING HABITS

Weighted by Response n „

Lager I
Ciders I
Others □

■''

(-■

16-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55 or ow»r

This demonstrates which drinks people prefer - roughly graded into four
categories. As might be expected, lagers and ciders are as popular with
young people as the beers are with older ones.

FIGURE 6 - DRINKERS BY AGE

3«H

Unwelghted

Beers 89
Lager I
Ciders I
Others □

18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55 or ov«i

This simple bar chart demonstrates what people are drinking. In an ideal
world, this one should closely match the weighted figures.

2 shows a more detailed breakdown,
again with unweighted figures.

However, the survey was
randomised in an attempt to discover
the actual age range of members -
Figure 3. By combining the
percentage of people attending with
the existing figures, we can obtain a
weighted analysis - Figure 4 is an
example comparing the two most
popular beers in the Beer Test. Even
though the 25-34 year-olds outweigh
the 18-24s. the weighted figures
suggest that the younger group tend
to prefer bitters. In fact, the 25-34
year olds have a tendency to lagers
as the more generalised Figures 5
and 6 show.

CONCLUSION

Over the last few months I have
skimmed the surface of the two most
powerful and potentially useful
business applications ever devised.
This two-parter was just a taste of
the real Beer Test - any more would
be boring. The full report is, of
course, confidential but you can draw
your own conclusions from the
analysis presented here.

This should be enough to whet
your appetite and prove that the
Amiga can compete with
conventional business machines like
the PC - and win! In the coming
months I'll be looking at business
software in more detail. QJ

ooooooooo

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GRAPHICAL ADVANTAGE

The analysis of the Beer Test data provides a lot of numbers. By carefully
writing the reporting programs it is possible to get the computer to
produce prewritten reports. However, although figures are fine for those
with a penchant for them, the average manager - most people, come to
that - would much rather look at a diagram. In this form, although the
actual values may not be obvious the relationship between them can be
clearly demonstrated.

By this reckoning, if databases are the best applications to compile
data then spreadsheets are the best ones to display them: and one of the
best Amiga spreadsheets available is Gold Disk's Home Office Advantage
- usually just called Advantage. Although I used the enhanced version 1.1,
Advantage 1.0 can be found in Gold Disk's Office bundle. Another benefit
of a spreadsheet is its ability to massage the results in ways which could
prove difficult in a database reporting language - even one as powerful as
Superbase Pro 4's.

The demographics required here are simple enough for many Amiga
spreadsheets to handle. Analyse 2 (in the Works pack) and Kuma's
H-Spread 3 to name just two are both eminently capable of handling the
relatively simple demands placed on them by this particular application.

All good spreadsheets offer a some sort of graphics facilities; indeed,
you would be foolish to even consider buying one that did not support at
least simple charts. This specific application and the type of data it
produces lends itself particularly well to bar (column) charts as well as the
simpler pie charts.

Surprisingly, although Advantage has both of these - and a lot more
besides - it is not possible to merge two (or more) charts. This feature,
which seems lacking from Amiga spreadsheets as a whole, is very useful
for comparing graphs. Thanks to IFF, however, this can be easily overcome
by saving the two charts separately and merging them in an art package
(DPaint. for instance) prior to presentation.

12A

AMIGA SHOPPER ft ISSUE 7 ft NOVEMBER 1991

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PDA 86 Utopia#4{18+)

PDA 89 Bodeans BordeIlo#9 (1 8+)

PDA 90 Bunsen Burner-Jet Fighter anim

PDA 92 D. Landers Sci-fi Show* 1

PDA 93 D. landers Sci-fi Show»2

PDA 1 10 Bruce Lee Enter the Dragon

PDA 1 1 Bruce Lee Slideshow II

PDA 1 1 2 Dragons Lair II Demo

PDA1 1 4 Neighbours Slideshow

PDA 116 Terminator

MUSIC

PDM 5 MFrElectnc CLI IV

PDM 6 Winkers song(2 disks)

PDM 9 R>de on time & Batdance

PDM 1 9 Bad- M Jackson

PDM 20 Bat Dance

PDM 27 DMOB Megamusic III

PDM 26 Enemies Mush: III

PDM 30 Digital Concert II

PDM 31 Digital Concert III

PDM 33 Halloween-Follow the Sgn'(2)

PDM 35Thmk were alone now- Tiffany

PDM 36 Land of Confusion-Genesis

PDM 38 Miami Vice Theme (4 disks)

PDM 40 MFI Vangelis Demo

PDM 65 Digital Concert IV

PDM 72 Popeye meets the Beachboys

PDM 80 Digital Concert VI

PDM 82 Freddy Kruger

PDM 83 Kefrens Jukebox

PDM 84 Madonna-Hanky pan ky

PDM 85 Miami Vice-Crockets Theme

PDM 87 RIP Eruption

PDM 88 Siab Music

PDM91 100 Most Remembered C64 tunes

PDM 95 Hi-Fi Demo

PDM 1 04 BassX*5 Power Remix

PDM 105 BassX#6 Sydney Youngbtood

PDMi06BertyBoo

PDM 109 Depeche Mode

PDMH0DMOeM.se!

PDM ••- DMOB M. sell

PDM 1 1 2 DMOB Music IV(2 disks)

PDM 1 1 7 Flash Gordan (2 disks)

PDM 1 1 8 Hacktnck toadsamoney '

PDM 120 Laurel & Hardy (2 disks)

PDM128NASPV2.0

PDM 131 PetshopBoysRemix»1

PDM 132 Petshop Boys Remix«2

CLIP ART

There Is a total of 13 disks in the clip
art range.AII are In IFF Format & are
ideal for DTP.There are loads of
images to choose trom.ranging from
fancy borders to special occasions
& from people to animals etc etc.

All 13 disks for only £15.00

GAMES

PDG 1 StarTrek-Fmal Fronber(2 disks)

PDG 2 Star trek (3 disks. 2 dnves)

PDG 5 Card & Board Games

PDG 18 Marble Side

PDG 19 Destination Moonbase

PDG 21 Bo. ng the Game (2 disks)

PDG 26 Treasure Search

PDG3iMoria

PDG 32 Legend of Farghail

PDG 33 Arcadia (Breakout sry e game)

PDG 34 Dynamite Dick

PDG 35 Pair It

PDG 36 Snakes & ladders/Rave rsi

PDG 37 Super Quiz

PACK 3

Music Pack (10 disk pack)
Vision muse masters
Crusaders "bactena music"
Crack music dsk
Jetset overload music disk
Ral megama 1
Flash digital concert 6

Flashing byles "sweet songs one"
Alcairaz "panic voices of energy"
Crusaders mcro concert
Archaos music disk

£11-00

PACK 4

Adult pack (10 dsk pack)
Sabnna.Sam Fox (2 disks)
Bodeans Bordello #2
Bodeans Bordello #3
Bodeans Bordello #10
Bodeans Movies
West Coast Cracker

BFPO #1. BFPO #2
Utopia #1

£11-00

PACK 5

Music makers pack

Protracker

Noise tracker

Star tracker

Songs disks (3 disks)

Insturment dtsks(4 disks)

A must for musk makers

£1100

PACK 6

New release pack
This s a 10 dsk pack
containing all the latest
demos form all the best
groups e.gLSD.Ipec Elite
Flashing byles etc. etc.
The pack changes on a weeWy
basis,so is kept bang up to date
A must for onl y

£12-00

WE ACCEPT ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS PLEASE MAKE CHEQUES AND PO'S PAYABLE TO PD DIRECT

AND SEND ORDERS TO:-

UNIT 3 DEPT ASH, RAILWAY ENTERPRISE CENTRE, SHELTON NEW ROAD,STOKE ON TRENT, ST4 7SH

135

AMIGA BOOKS

UWCMAffligi BASIC

....£16.95

AmigaOOSADafihandGuKJe

£1495

AMnced System Prog Gun*

£2995

Becoming an Amiga Anrst

£1695

Amiga 30 Coptics m BASIC

-11695

Best 0' Tncfci Tips

£24 95(d)

f ^^ w ^ - — ^-- ^» ^»

fl695

Elementary Am$i BASIC

£1295

*n^j tes«mwy unguage Prog

£1295

H5SmtteJQ« Mjndboot

£1095

Am«a BASIC IrtsKte ft OU

£1895
09*

faecon AirCorncot

£1295

Vn^a C lor A^ancad Prtig

ftrsi Boot o* Amiga

£1495

Amiga C tor Bejmirs

C1695

Get the Most out CAff^a

£995

AmiQi Ccdokw : —

--£14.95

GtfMO tt Most from Amiga

£995

Amiga tetiop V«o Guide

£1695

Gunsr*p Academy

£1095

Africa DoUop Video Wrxtoouk

09.95(d)

Insde Amfla Giapncs

£1495

AnMoa Disk Ddvk Inside & Out

124.96

Jack Nicuaus Computer Gofi

£1095

AmaaDOSlftsxfe&Out..-

P1695

Kids & The Amiga

£1395

Amiga DOS Quck Reference

£8.95

Leisure Suit Larry Story

....£11.96

Amiga ior Beginners

...£1295

£2995

£2195

Maung Music on the Amiga

Mapping Ihe Amiga

....£2995 Id}

Amma Graphics Inside A Our

£1995

Amioa Hardware Ret Guide

■ ~ w w

£1995 |di

Amiga Kwnai RDM. Induces

£28.95

Mastering AmigaDOS 2 Vol 1

...£21.95 (d)

Am-oa Kemal ROM: Libs & Divs

. B9.95

Mastenng AmigaDOS 2 Vol 2

...£1796

Am.gi Machiw Language

£14.95

MC68000 Prog Ret

£895

Amiga Printers Inside A Out

£29.95 (d)

More Tnctofi Tips

£14.95

Amiga System Prog Guide

£2995

Official Book of Kings Quest

£995

Amiga User Interface Style Guide

£1995

Programming trie 68000 (Sybei)

£2295

Amiga Vrsw Handbook

£2295

Screen Ptay

£995

AmgaOOS2Comoanion —

£2295

Second Book ot Amiga

£1495

ftnpOOSRft Guft3(fl Ed

£1895

lh*gOeluiPainl2nd£d

£1995

«)- indudesdek Smd SAE to our new descnpove catatogue

3t\ * aeniwM

art turlaco mail worttfwtee.
I UN

DTBS (ash id

F\l 18 Norwich Avenue. Rochdale. Lanes 0111 SJZ

Tel/Fan 0706-524304

TROUBLESOME

FAULTY AMIGA?!!

Quality Amiga Repairs

From only £23.50

FOR SPEED, FREE POSTAGE

INCLUDES FREE PIECE OF SOFTWARE

♦ PEACE OF MIND CALL FOR OUR FIXED

PRICE OFFER ANYWHERE IN THE UK!

Amiga Upgrades
Fitted

Shop 10,

Bridge Park,

Harrow Rd,

Brentfield,

London
NW1QORG

ACCttft

Ring Repairs Hotline
STAR ASSOC. Computers

Wembley 081 961 5366/4412

For computers &

accessories

DISKS. HIGH QUALITY WITH LABELS

35" DSDD. blue 33p

3.5" Sony, branded 68p

3.5" 3M. branded 75p

DISK STORAGE BOXES

3.5" 40 capacity, locks £4 45

3.5" 80 capacity, locks £5 45

3.5" 100 capacity, locks £5.95

ACCESSORIES

Amiga external dnve £55.95

0.5Mb upgrade £24 95

0.5Mb upgrade, clock £28 95

Amiga replacement mouse £17.50

Naksha upgrade mouse £23.95

where you CAN
buy more for less

Universal pnnter stand £5.95

Tilt turn monitor stand £10.95

Mouse joystick extension £4 95

4- player extension lead £4.95

Joysbck spkttef lead £4.95

Fastrac* chsk swap box £^95

Mouse mat. 6mm £1.95

Disk head cleaning kit £1.95

3.5' 100 disk label pack £1.50

Amiga dust cover £2.95

Zipstick autofire joysfcek £10.95

Ouckjoy Supercharger III £8 95

Qu»ckjoy Topstar £19.95

Ask !or compute's 4 joysticks list
....and now a FREE PD Catalogue disk.

Cheques/PO's to: REDLAW RESOURCES.
ASH Offer. 74 Durban Road. Patchway. Bristol. BS12 5HQ.

Please add £3 50 tor p&p.
Tel: (0272) 760600 (24 hour)

136

GFA Basic 3.5

Interpreter.
Now for the Amiga.

£50#tT £25.00

In support of Amiga Shopper's new programming
tutorial series for GFA-BASIC, a very special offer.

Data Media UK

Programming environment editor
Structured programming support
Auto indent
Procedure folding
400 page User Manual
Variable types: Boolean, Byte,
Integer, Float, String
System Library supported
Over 300 Commands supported

GFA-BASIC code created on your Amiga will
also run on the Atari ST, MS-DOS and
WINDOWS 3.0, with little or no change.

GFA Data Media

Box 121

Wokingham

Berkshire, RG11 5XT

Tel: (0734) 794941

Available by mail order from:

GFA Data Media (UK) Ud, Box
121, Wokingham, Berkshire.
RG115XT.

Credit card or cheque/postal
orders payable to GFA Data
Media (UK) Ud accepted

VISA

I wish to pay by Visa/Mastercard: please
charge my account.

GFA Basic Interpreter Amiga £25.00 Q

MasterCard

Name (on card)

Card No-

I I

Signature

Expiry Date

t Address

READER ADS

Now you can reach thousands of fellow Amiga owners for only £5

FOR SALE

, A500 plus 1084S
monitor plus external floppy
drive, joystick and games £520.
tr 0276 600165.

Amiga 500, 512K RAM
expansion with clock,
Workbench 1.3, A590 20Mb HD
with 1 meg of RAM, loads of
software, manuals £500 ono.
« Tom anytime 5-1 lpm 08642
677632.

Tandy WP-2 portable word
processor (see Amiga Format
no 16). £150. « 0782 415186.

H)umd expansion RAM for

A500 6 meg fully populated
£190. Also A590 hard drive
with 2 meg RAM fitted £250.
• Bob during day (0375)
375811 evenings (0375)
379795.

Dowety Quattro Modem V22bis
V22 V23 V21 full duplex
operation, autoanswer,
autodial, autobaud constant
speed Interface. Hayes
compatible. Cost £575 will
accept £180. » 0706 622135.

MPS1550C Amiga colour
printer cost £249 still boxed
with cable, and extra ribbons.
used twice. Will accept £199.
» 0706 622135
Heywood/Rochdale.

Taxan full width professional
dot-matrix printer NLQ tractor
feed. Excellent value of £199.
« 0706 622135 for details
Heywood/Rochdale.

A1500 hardware six months old
plus Philips monitor, and Star
LC-200 colour printer.
Spreadsheet. D-Base, graphics
and Pro-Page V2.0A DTP
software. Games also available,
tr Weybridge. Surrey on 0932
846360.

Amiga 1Mb. manuals,
Workbench. Recently
overhauled. No software, but
you get my phone number for
any help needed! £250 only.
Also B12 clarinet £180.
» 0298 812906.

Amiga 500 plus five years
insurance and RAM expansion
with clock many software titles,
ZX Spectrum and 128K with
software and Datassette mouse

mat for Amiga and dustcover.
« 081-541 1319.

Citizen Swift printer. 24-pin dot-
matrix, fitted colour kit. 32K
RAM buffer upgrade fitted.
Includes manual, leads for
Amiga, black/colour ribbons.
Rarely used. £200. » 0296
81881, Evenings.

Devpac II for sale plus two
Amiga reference manuals. All
worth £100, selling for £60.
Totally unused. Unwanted gift.
Very good condition. Fully
boxed. • Mark Peacock 0245
75367.

Amiga A500, 512K RAM and
clock, mouse, joystick. TV
modulator. Philips colour
monitor, collection of games,
books, all in good condition
£450. » Andy on 0903 203906
evenings and weekends.

Star LC-10 printer, leads for
Amiga, spare ribbon, boxed, in
good condition. £110. » Andy
on 0903 203906 evenings and
weekends.

Epson LX86 printer with tractor
unit, cut sheet unit, 14 ribbons,
approx 500 sheets continuous

paper and cable. Cost £348.
Will sell for £180 ono. tr Tony,
evenings 0923 229779.

Yamaha PSS-680 synthesiser.
100 rhythms, 100 voices,
digital synthesiser makes
thousands of different voices,
drum pads, manual, MIDI cable,
mint condition, as new £150
ono. » Tony, evenings 0923
229779.

Prodraw2 boxed, complete.
£65orW.H.Y?tt 0252

511352 after 6pm.

Hard drive for Amiga A500
autoboot 50Mb Amdrive £300.
3.5-inch external drive £50.
» Neil 071^74 4019.

Randal* 8806 for Amiga 2000.
the pro unit for desk top video,
also MX10 mixer £400 each or
£750 for both items. » 0920
821003 after 6pm.

Swap 386 SX PC 42Mb HD 2

megs RAM VGA colour monitor
mouse software for Amiga 2000
with 40Mb HD XT BB software.
Contact Mark * 040377 545
West Sussex under guarantee.

Amiga 2000 including colour

Only £5 to sell your used hardware and software In Amiga Shopper

Sell your excess hardware and software with Amiga Shopper Reader
Adverts. Just fill in the form and send it to us along with a cheque
(made payable to Future Publishing) or postal order for £5. But BE
WARNED. This magazine is not a forum for selling prrate software or
other illegal goods. Software must include all issue disks, manuals

and a signed statement that all other copies have been destroyed.
Please advise us if you are offered pirate or copied software by
advertisers. All ads are accepted in good faith. The editor reserves
the right to refuse or amend ads. We accept no responsibility for
typographical errors or losses ansing from the use of this service.

Trade ads will not be accepted. Including anyone advertising the sale of PD software.

Name

Address (not for publication)

Issue 7

Postcode

Date

Tel....

Tick one box to

show required

section heading

For sale □

Wanted □

Personal J

Fanzines. J

Use one space for each word. Only the words in this section will be printed.

Return with your

cheque to:

Reader Ads,

Amiga Shopper,

30 Monmouth

Street,

Avon BAl 2BW

Unfortunately we cannot guarantee insertion in a particular issue.

I have read and understood the conditions for the inclusion of my ad.

Signature

monitor. Excellent condition.
Only £595. » 0273 208132.

A500 Workbench 1.3 2Mb RAM
all manuals boxed £250.
Commodore A2058 RAM board
2Mb installed unopened £170.
Power Computing 5.25/3.5 dual
drive external power, all leads
software boxed £100. « 0772
633593.

The Datel Pro-Sampler II stereo
sound sampler + Datel Jammer.
Brand new with software and
manual. For only £50. « Paul
Linsell on 0427 612733.

Amiga A1000, Stereo monitor.
2nd drive. 1.5Mb. MIDI
Interface with software. Can be
fitted with internal hard drive.
Bargain at only £495 for such a
quality machine. » 0209
216088.

X-CAD Designer draughting
program £45. w Bodmin 0208
851105.

Amax II Macintosh emulator
plus those oh-so rare ROMs!
£200. Also ICD flicker free
video card (for use with
multisync monitor) as new
£190. » 0983 853942 right
now!

Deluxe Productions £50,
Deluxe Video (PAL) £30. Comic
Setter £25, Fantavision £15.
Rainbow Island £5. » Cliff 0532
403285 after 6.00pm or 0532
713021 between 8.00am -
5.00pm.

FANZINES

Send £7 and receive 80 pages
(A4) filled with hints etc for
more than 200 Amiga 500
games and programs. Write to:
John Nielsen. Malov Hovedgade
132, DK-2760 Malov, Denmark.

PERSONAL

PD to swap on a one to one
basis. Please write with SAE Mr
C Parker, 258 Marlborough
Road. Swindon. Wilts SN3 1NR.

PD swappers wanted to swap
one for one, many titles. Please
send list plus SAE to Robert
Blazye. 40 Constance Crescent.
Hayes. Kent BR2 7QJ. Wanted
cheap Vidi Amiga (around £20).

HAM-E owners wanting to swap
ideas and/or graphics for this
amazing system. Contact Jason
at 19 Stirrup Way, Pound Hill,
Crawley. W Sussex. RH10 7RH.

Digitising service. Do you need
your holiday snaps etc
digitised? If so send a blank
disk for details/samples to S M
Doe. 58 Winchester Road,
Colchester. Essex. C02 7LH.
J Enclose return address.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1W1

137

USER GROUPS

If your group isn't mentioned, fill
in the form at the bottom of the
page to let us know about you

1520 Plotter Group (ICPUG) Contact John
Bentley ** 06286 65932.

Amiga Artists Club 34 Roundhay Mount,
Leeds LS8 4DW. A club for Amiga artists,
musicians and coders for mutual
assistance and programming demos. No
pirates, genuine Amiga artists only.
Membership is free, contact KAM on w
0532 493942, 5pm-8pm.

Amiga Beginners" Club 110 Whltehill
Park, umoviuy. Co. Londonderry. BT49
OQG. A club to help newcomers to the

Arnica. There is a bi-monthly club disk,

and a small PD library. Membership costs
£2 for a single disk, or £20 for every
issue.

Amiga Musicians' Club Membership gets
you a disk with 50 IFF samples a month
for 12 months. Also sample service.
Membership £30. Contact Gavin Wylie,
Guthrie Street. Carnoustie. Angus.

Amiga Users Klub, Windsor House, 19
Castle Street. Bodmin, Cornwall PL31
2DX. Meets every Friday from 6.30-9pm.
to expand members' knowledge of Amiga
computing and to help solve people's
problems. Contact Jack Tailing.

Amiga Wltham Users Group 85 Highfields
Rd. Witham. Essex CM8 1LW. Distributes
tips and Basic programs. Keith Anderson
• 0376 518271.

Amlgehollcs Club For beginners and some
experts. Free membership. Own disk
magazine. Contact Kevin Bryan » 071-580
2000 Ext 240 or write to 29 Wolfe
Crescent. Charlton. London SE7 8TS.

Anglesey ICPUG Meets every Monday
6pm-9pm at Holyhead Unemployed
Workers Club. All machines from C64 to
Amiga. Contact Nick Massey » 0407
765221.

Ayr ICPUG Meets at Radix Training

GET YOURSELF LISTED

If you run a user group which Isn't listed on this page, till In the
form below for your free entry. Send It to Amiga Shopper User
Groups List, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW. We reserve the
tight to refuse entries.

Group name

Contact name

Contact telephone number

Contact address

Place of meetings

Time of meetings
Type of activities

Membership fee

Centre. West Sanquhar Road. Ayr. Contact
John Smith « 0292 261408 Ext 202.

Basic Programmers Group 68 Queen
Elizabeth Drive, Normanton. West
Yorkshire WF6 1JF. Set up to encourage
the use of Basic, exchange ideas and
assist beginners to the language. Free
newsletter from Mark Blackall « 0924
892106.

Bury St. Edmunds ICPUG Contact Alan
Morris » 0359 51446.

Buxton ICPUG Contact Peter Richardson
« 0298 23644.

ChesteHe-Street 16 Bit Computer Club

Conference Room 2, The Civic Centre,
Newcastle Road. Chester-le-Street. The
club meets every Monday from 7.30-
9.30pm to see each others' software
collections, exchange advice and swap
tips. Contact Peter Mears » 091365
2939.

Club Amiga 5 Bowes Lea, Shiney Row.
Houghton Le Spnng. Tyne and Wear DH4
4PP. Membership costs £15 a year for a
disk magazine, PD software and a 24-hour
telephone helpline service (091-385
2627). For more information send an SAE
to Chris Longley.

Computer Club 16 Laton Road. Hastings.
East Sussex « 0424 421480. This is a
16-bit club dedicated to being computer
enthusiasts without being pirates.
Membership costs £15 per year, and the
club has arranged discounts with several
local firms.

Coventry ICPUG Meets on the first
Wednesday of the month. Bnng your
computers. Contact John Orange w 0203
-, 689635.

Disabled Group (ICPUG) Contact David
Bate. 71 Bedford Road. Bootle.
Merseyside L20 7DN.

Dublin ICPUG Meets fortnightly on Fridays
(except August) at St. Andrews College.
Covers all Eire, 36 page newsletter.
Discounts arranged. Contact Geoffrey
Reeves » 010 353 12 883863.

Dundee ICPUG A new group which hopes
to meet at Bits and Bytes, 21b
Commercial Street, Dundee. Contact Dave
Thonton « 0382 505427.

Edinburgh Amiga Group Membership £5.
includes free advice and PD. Contact Neil
McRea. 37 Klngsknowe Road North.
Edinburgh EH14 2DE with SAE.

Edinburgh ICPUG Contact Martin Lowe,
Amiga Centre Scotland « 031-557 4242.

Genealogy Group (ICPUG) Contact Steve
Turner, 27 Burley Close, London SW16
4QQ.

Imagine Users Group To encourage use of
Imagine and other ray tracers. Affiliated to
US group. Object library. Membership free.
Contact Bnan Walker, 16 Cambridge
Road. Newton Cambridge CB2 5PL.

Independent Commodore Products Users
Group Biggin Hill Library, Church Road.
Biggin Hill. Kent Meets most Thursdays
from 7.45-9.45pm. There are lecture

nights and open nights where members
can get help. See also regional entries.
Contact John Bickerstaff after 8.30pm »
081-651 5436.

Macclesfield ICPUG Meets at The
Hanec-"" CKjO. Chestergate. Macclesfield,
every Tuesday from 8-llpm. Contact Peter
Richardson « 0298 23644.

Mid-Thames ICPUG Meets at Cox Green
Community Centre. SW of Maidenhead, on
the second Thursday of the month at
7.30. Open nights and some talks.
Newsletter. Contact Mike Hatt » 0753
645728.

Public Domain User Group Swaps PD
between members, provides advice and
reviews of PD. Basic membership free,
advanced £3 per year for newsletters and
pnce reductions. SAE to 12 Oxford Road.
Guildford. Surrey GUI 3RP.

Slim Agnus 115 Brocks Drive. North
Cheam. Sutton. Surrey SM3 9UW. Meets
on the last Thursday of the month. PD
library, bulletin board, advice from Amiga
experts. Contact Philip Worrel.

Software Exchange Service 13 Boumville
Lane. Stirchley. Birmingham. West
Midlands B30 2JY. Offers a forum for
exchanging old. unwanted games for a
small pnce. Contact Michael Pun on «
021-459 7576.

Solent ICPUG Meets at GEC Aerospace
Sports and Social Club. Trtchfield. Hants,
first Tuesday of the month at 7.30. Open
nights and some talks. Contact Anthony
Dimmer » 0705 254969.

South West ICPUG Meets second Sunday
of the month at Queens Arms Hotel,
Charmouth. Dorset, at 10am. Bring your
computers. Some talks. Contact Peter
Miles » 0297 60339.

Stevenage ICPUG Meets at Hertford Road
Community Centre. Stevenage, last Friday
of the month at 7.30pm. Contact Bob
Grainger tr 0438 727925.

The Pennine Amiga Club 193B Oakworth
Road. Keighiey. West Yorkshire BD21
IRE. Offers free membership, free advice,
and circulates a newsletter. Contact
Simon Booth » 0535 600437.

Watford ICPUG Long standing club with
friendly atmosphere. Meets third
Wednesday of the month. 7.30pm St
Thomas Church Hall. Watford.
Membership £12. Contact Rod Eva/Mark
Pryor n 0923 50161.

West Riding ICPUG Meets at the White
Horse Inn. Fall Lane. East Ardsley.
Wakefield, first and third Tuesdays at
7pm. Open nights. Minibus to London
shows. Contact Kevin Morton « 0532
537318.

Wlgan ICPUG Contact Brian Caswell «
0942 213402.

Wrexham District Computer Club PD.
library of books, equipment loan. 10p to
join, plus 50p to get in. Held In Memorial
Hall. Wrexham every Thursday. 7-10pm.
Contact Paul Evans. 3 Ffordd Elfed.
Rhosnesi. Wrexham, Crwyd LL12 7LU.

11R

AMIGA SHOPPED • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1901

-. \3 S E R S

Free PD Sottware ^
Six 100 Page Magazines
Technical Advice - Discounts

Send SAE for details to Jack S.

Cohen PO Box 1309 London

N3 2UT only £17 per year including

ct joining FEE of £1 - We support all

O Commodore Machines with I

C> software for each - Back issues for

O 1990 £2 each - Overseas o

ICPUG

CALL
081-346-0050

after 6.00pm

prices on request

J. N 3 C

KC VIDEO

6+8 DONCASTER RD, SOUTH ELMSALL,
NR PONTEFRACT, W. YORKS WF9 2HZ

Same Day despatch on AccessVlsa'P.O . Cheques payable to KC VIDEO

Tel: 0977 - 649100 (Fax: 0977 - 643312)

Loads Atari ♦ Amiga goodies
- price liat available

- price list available

Opening hours:- Mon-Fri 9.30am-7pnV

Sat 9.30am - 6pm/Sun 10.00am-3pm

— \f — x r^.c

■^ nn /"^r^c^r^

[Riofonrtint

Deluxe Mu« Construction Set - I 49

;CSI H/D(45,00,135,173')!rom

rT>(nj\\i

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A5M Upgrade(mc fit&Ret)from 229

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HI In lei 1 *■

■ Mtfriesctter

39 .M Music X Junior

74.Mi Mickey's Runaway Zoo 17 99

3 5" External fioppy Drive

1 pU PRICE* WOUDtVAT* PtUYWTO WUR DOORffl

1 Real Things Birds
Real Things Humans

24.99, Tiger CubincJ. Interface-leads
24.99 1 Bars & Pipes Professional
19M!MiSCaLANE0US
24 M BAD Disk Opbmiser
37.00 Cross Dos 4

79 99
174 M

Mjm Talk Fractions 17 M
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 20 49
Pur/leBoofcll 14 49
Pufrie Storybook 17 M

5t2k Ram Expansion no clock
51 7k Ram E xpanson ♦ clock
1 5 Mb Ram Expansion
Colour Sdution(ViduRGBspli1
Sharp JXtOO A6 Cot. Scanner

25
29

a a

■VIDEO

Super base Professional

14099

n C * rrunui raises

Profile

34 M

89
) 159

■Photon Video (Col Anlmitor

Super base Professional 4
INTEGRATED (WP/SS/DB)

200 00

Pt-mate

»W

Smoothtalkar 17.90

625

iDfltuxt Video III

50.00

Butcher

27 .M

Dos 2 Dos

30 M

SpaJIbook 14 09

Weather W»lch§* 17,9Q

Golden Image Hand Scanner

175

Ins^li Ammtfl*
■Broadcast Tifier 2

Tht Work* Plebnvm

eo.M

The Art Department

40 JO

Desk Master

Podscat Graphics Tablet

100

174 M

Oofd 0* Offtce

100 M

The Art Department Pro

134 99

Face II

24 99

HAROWARE

Zydec Mkroswnched Mouse
Naksha Mouse

■Amkjavlslon
IScafa

59 » DTP

Kara Arum fonts 1

20.90

G3 Route

34.90

Amiga 500 Baste 319
A50O Screen Gems 1Mbyte 370
ASOO Cartoon Classics iMbyta 379

174 09. Pag wetter 2

54 M

Kara Anim Fonts 2

29 00

icon Paint

Turbo Mouse

lIVTcxlFiulcssoni

BUI

no Page 2

l»SW

Kan Amm Fonts 3

20 00

Quarterback Hard Disk Backup 49 M

Mouse Mat

|TVShow2

49 99

Pro Draw 2

Kara Fonts Headlines 1

40 N

Quarterback Tods

50 M

A500 Qass ol OO's 1MB 469

50 Blank Disks

IVldtotitl* 1.5 3D

OuDrt fonts

Kara Fonts Headlines 2

44 00

Bvfe'N-Bac* Hard Dtsk Backup is M

A1500 Including Monitor M8
At SCO No Monitor M.

Philips 6633-11

230

ItfOROPftOCESSING

Gold Disk Fonts 1-4

MJfj

Kara Fonts Sub Headlines

44 J»l EDUCATIONAL

Commodore 1064s

254

■Scribble PI adnum

30 00

Structured Op art

30 00

30 MODELLING & RENDERING iThreeBears

1640

A3000 from 2099

Star LC200 Colour

219

|Kindwords2

30.00

Eclips

70 M

Sculpt 3DXL

64 99

Donald's Alphabet

1769

CDTV 569

Star IC74 200 Mono

259

■interword

30.90

Proclips

17.00

Sculpt Animate 4D

229 99

Dinosaur Discovery Kit

17 M

A590 20Mb Hard Drive 279

Star LC24 200 Cotouf

299

1 Penpal

00.90

(Mum Print II

34.M

Vista

42 99

Distant Suns

32 99

A500 20Mb H/DrWe.?Mb RAM 359

Oti/enSwirt 9 Colour

109

1 Excellence 2

Vista Professional

59 5-;

Dees sky Objects

14 M

Trumpcard 500 40Mb H/0rrve 539

Obren Swift 24 Colour

299

|Pr oted 4.2

X-CAO Destgnar

74 00

Imagine
30 Professional
Real 30 Beginners
Real 30 Turbo

15999

Sky map Expansion

14.00

Trumpcard 2000 40Mb H/Drwe 610

Canon BubWefet Podabfe

289

1 Promt 5.0

too 00

MM
MM

X- CAD Professional
Amis Draw 2000

ACCOUNTS

150.00

349.99
10099
200.09

first Letters 4 Words
Fun School II (2-6)
Fun School II 6-8)

17.09
14 40

14.49

|ProWrfta3.1

■Word worth

Vwi Mat if... Wi io it... Jutt pkoni iiu 1 « I euote...

■Word Perfect 4.1

159 09

Home Accounts

27 M

PROGRAMMING

Fun School II (Over 5s)
Fun School lit (Under 5s)

17.M

3E rYiirtfartfiniehsiperl (39

pl jk jh p_& L k *l Jm. «a» k ^

■WordPerfect Library

70.00

Cashbook/Rnal Accounts

44 09

AMOS

35.00

17 99

(SPREADSHEET

Personal Tax Planner

7B.M

AMOS Compiler

20 49

Fun School III 5-7)

17.00

POST HASTE, 11a Burg-ate Lane. Canterbury. Kent. CT1 2HH

■Advantage
IDG Calc

70.00
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Small Business Accounts Cash 50 M

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40.90

219 99

Fun School III (Over 7s)
Goofy's Railway

17 M
17 M

TELEPHONE HOTLINE 0227-764204 9.30am to 7.00pm

■DATABASES

Small Business Accounts Xtra 79 M

Htsofl Basic

57. M

Hooray lor Henrietta
Kid Talk

17 M

Vita. Mastercard. Eurocard and PO Orders are despatched same t

layl

1 In f of it*

34 .00

GRAPHICS

Hisoft Basic Extend

14.40

17.99

Please allow up lo 4 working days lor cheques to clear.

|Superbase Personal 2

BOM

Deluxe Palnf 3

54 00

MUSIC

KjtfsType

17 M

MAIL6TELEPH0NE ORDERS ONLY. NO PERSONAL CALLERS PLEASEI

inner per forms

£36.50

Announcing...

POOLSWINNER

THE POOLS PREDICTION PROGRAM Gold

WITH ARTIFICIAL INTEIXIGENCE

• THE LEGENDARY POOLS PREDICTION AID, PooUwtanrr,

now ha* irt if tr ia l jnl**lli | f nft* The Ulesl vrr%n-n of the program,
Poolwinnf r CcTd, h-i\ tiS*? power lo learn (rom (he results of its
own predictions, consUntly adjusting the prediction formula to
improve performance*

• AUTOMATIC FIXTURE GENERATION Fulures for English

and Scottish League matches are generated automatically by
Poolswinner Gold, which now incorporates its sister program
FI\CT\ 91/92 (yearly updates are available from Selec).

• MASSIVE DATABASE 22000 match database over 10 years.

• PREDICTS SCOREDRAWS, NO-SCORES, AWAYS and

HOMES Predictions are based on many factors * recent form,
the massive database, league Handing, goal scoring rales, and
draw averages. The user can adjust alTparameters.

• SUCCKSFUL Selec guar,tntge that Poofswir

significantly better than chance.

• LEAGUE AND NON-LEAGUE matches ire covered. Can be used for the non-league

and amature matches so often on the coupon now.

• FULL LEAGUE TABLES (home U away) are automatically generated by the program

as results come in.

• UPDATED WEEKLY. Poolswinner Gold is supplied fully updated with all league

results from the slarl of the season - its ready for immediate use.

• PACKAGE CONTAINS disc, detailed operating manual and support literature, all you

need to start forecasts immediately.

Also available from Selec >.

COURSEWINNER V4 £36.50

THE PUNTER'S COMPUTER PROGRAM. Uses artificial intelli-
gence. Uses past form, goinfr, distance, speed ratings, prize money
eU. Contains British course statistics - best jockeys, trainers, draw
effect etc. Detailed analysis of all runners in a race, with profit.
Sophisticated aid to successful betting, with a long pedigree.

POOLS PERM PLUS £32.50

Perm analyser and checker, complete with 5 years of coupon results and
popular perms for analysis. Checks your weekly entrv tor winning lines,
or tests your theories on results over the last 5 years. Reveals all the weeks
a bet wouJd have won, and the probable dividend*

FOOTBALL FOLLOWER £32.50

Statistical analysis for Football enthusiasts. Tables,
fixture lists, sequences etc. Set up for British League
football, but can be set up by the user for any league -
amature etc. Ideal for all fans, league secretaries etc.

All prngrarm are supplied on
dive, packaged wiih detailed
instruction manual, and suppon
litereiure Formal* available:

IHM (3.5" or 5.25")

AMIGA

ATARI ST

AMSTRAD PCW
Pnte\a/r un\uu*tol VAT A delivery

t*H rttmr* ofpoti Krt.tf t» .. wClwC O0TXW3rG l» '»*«>

62 Allrincham Rd, Galley, Cheadle, Cheshire SKM 4DP

Trl061-42H-?425
WioneorFAX 7* t*\

Yes that's right, you can rviw get Amiga Pl> (or an amazing <*<p per disk (Free if you supply the disk),
once you have joined our friendly, fast growing and extremely popular Amiga PD Club It must surely
be the Public Domain buyers dream come true'

Lifetime membership to the club costs only X19.V5. Much of this, however, will go straight back into
the club to provide you with an even better service Members will be able to choose as many PD titles
as they I'ke from our detailed catalogue disks, listing many of the Classic and Latest titles. We will
bring you the very best in Demos. Utilities. Music. Art. Business. Animation. Games. Slides and much
more. Just send us the blank disks & return postage and we will despatch your order to you the same
day. It just couldn't be easier. As an added bonus, members not wishing to supply their own disks -
don't have to. We will send your order on our own high quality disks for just 39p per title. We can t say
fairer than that!
Members will also enjoy many other benefits including

* Many new titles to choose from every month!

* Massive discounts on other Amijia Products!

* All catalogue disks are constantly updated and are available FREE!

* Superb disk magazine. FREE every month. (News, Reviews. Competitions. Letters.
Classifieds and much more!)

* A FREE games compilation to welcome all new members! A FREE mystery gift worth £14.95!

* No minimum or maximum order!

* Members can even request titles that we don't have at no extra cost!
Membership is usually priced at £29.95 a year, so apply now and take
full advantage of this extra special offer, Remember, you can have
LIFETIME membership for an incredible £19.95! Even your first
order could saw you £££'$!

To become a member, simply fill out the form below and send with
a ChequeyPoslal Order to:

RA.S. Enterprises, Amiga PD Club, 3 St. Johns Walk,
St. Ives, Cornwall TR26 2JJ, England.

Join now. We promise you will not be disappointed

I Enterprises.

i Name

i
i

i Postcode....

Address...

* "* ■■«

I Please enrol me as a member of the AMIGA PO CLUB and rush me my members pack and
J membership number. 1 enclose a Cheque/Postal Order for £19.95 payable to PAS.

Telephone

139

tmmtm

Phil South undertakes his monthly
journey into the public domain,
where all software is (nearly) free

Welcome back to the
world of PD. There are
some very nice pieces
in the postbag this
time round. After a few dry months
without any really good utilities in
sight. I turn around and I'm up to my
user port in compilations of the best
utils around. And Fred Fish disks are
being shifted by a lot more people
too. with a number of houses
carrying the whole Fred Fish range,
which if my intelligence is correct
numbers over 500 disks now. This
could have something to do with the
Fred Fish CD-ROM that has appeared
in recent months; any software
house can now get a CD drive and a
disk containing the first 400+ disks
all in one place in an casy-to-
dupticate package.

Graphics slideshows. far from
being old hat and past it. are also
coming back with a bang, and this
month I got no less than 14 sent to
me which, as I don't get everything
that comes out, means that there
must be even more out there. The
good news is that they are better
quality these days, and as well as
being very entertaining - especially
the likes of the Aliens demo - they
serve as handy bits of clip art, albeit
sometimes of slightly dubious
copyright clearance. Or taste, it
seems, as nude girlie PD' continues
to flourish unabated since the recent
exposes in the computer news
media. There are certain obvious
reasons for this: most people
involved in PD are male, single and
between 15-25 and so love this sort
of thing to death. OK, I admit It,
some of it is quite nice, but it
bothers me slightly that kids can
amass huge collections of nudes
{and more sinister pics and
animations) very easily on innocent-

looking disks that their parents can't
access easily. If the parents don't
know how to operate computers then
they cant find the pom. right? For
the over 18s it's none of our
business, but who is to say that this
stuff isn't being sold to children? I
don't know the answer, and you
certainly can't restrict access to
materials of an erotic nature without
constraining artistic and personal
liberty. So, a knotty question, and
one I'll leave you to ponder while we
kick into review mode and boot up
this month's collection of PD disks.

And by the way, before we begin
I'd just like to mention two things:
In I'll generally mention the author of
a piece of software where known, as
I think it's important to acknowledge
that they are the author, and that
these bits of software don't just
write themselves.

2. Normally I'll give you the number
of a PD disk according to whatever
vendor I get the program or disk
from. If the program has no number,
you have to ask for it by name from
the PD house mentioned.

Right, then, let's go...

UTILITIES

ANT1 VIRUS TOOLKIT

Electrlclown 01

The ultimate deterrent from the
Electriclown stable. Updated from
the original version of this disk, it
contains all the virus killers you'll
ever need, including up-to-date
versions of BootX, Master Virus
Killer. VirusX, Zero Virus and Virus
Check. Some are resident, some are
programs you run just to check your
disks at any time. This is a good
collection, although I'd argue for the
inclusion of the Pseudo Ops VK
program, which is so totally resident
it changes the startup screen on your
Amiga from a blue to a red disk and
plays some music. Now that's what I
call getting in before the milkmanl
Value for money 8/10

DISK UTILS

Electriclown U

A standard collection of the most
useful disk utils you will need from
time to time. These are not programs

you use all the time, with the
exception of SID, but if you ever have
a hard disk go down or a floppy
which goes bye-byes, you'll be glad
of the tools in this kit.

The disk contains FixDisk.
Format, DiskSpeed, MRBackup,
Showdisk, SID and Zap. FixDisk is
one of the most user-friendly disk
salvage programs around: if you
accidentally delete or scramble any
part of any sort of disk, you may well
be able to recover it with this
program. MRBackup enables you to
back up your hard disk, in case the
unthinkable should happen. If you
store a lot of data on your hard disks
I recommend that you back up at
least once a week - that way you
lose only a week's worth of work,
rather than a whole year's. We tend
to think of hard disks in general as
being very robust, and they are, but
many people have horror stories
about Amiga HDs which don't just
crash, they practically self-destruct.

And although I've never had a
problem with my hard disk, I'm still a
paranoid backup frenzy merchant,
due to complete screw-ups with
floppies. A floppy can store up to
about 150,000-200.000 words, and
if that goes down you've lost a lot of
work. So Imagine how much your
average hard disk has on it...

And finally there is SID, one
Amiga program which I for one use
every single day without fail.
Although its a simple directory utility
at first glance, it has features which
allow you to examine, erase and
rename files, hear sound samples,
view picture files and check the
format of almost all the files you

have on any device. It's One Of the

most versatile programs you can
own, and cuts down a lot of work.
The only thing is that once you've
used it on your machine, it's
extremely hard to function without it.
Value for money 9/10

C PROGRAMMING UTILS

Electriclown 19

A bunch of utils for the C
programmer, which will only make
any sense to you if you know that
language. On the disk are copies of

BEGINNERS

Software for
free? How's that
then?

This may sound like a call to
piracy, but public domain software
is free to anyone. Yes even you
sir, you at the back with the Jolly
Roger. There Isn't any catch,
unless you count the fact that
there Is so much PD software on
offer that It's hard to choose what
you're going to have. And that's
where I come In.

But what does PD mean?

The public domain concept Is
borrowed from the early days of
mainframe systems, where
enthusiasts (called 'hackers'
then, before the word had less
pleasant connotations) produced
programs and distributed them to
their friends and fellow hacklsh
types, asking for no payment but
the glow of being recognised as a
truly hacklsh coder. The copyright

TART HERE 1 was waWed by

the author, and
so the program was said to be in
the public domain - that is to say,
any member of the public had a
right to copy and use the program
however they wished, provided
that the author's credit and any
relevant documentation was
distributed with the program.

So how can I get hold of ail this
wonderful free PD?

Either buy it from a PD library (see
page 150 for a list) or, if you've
got a modem, download It from a
bulletin board. These are
computers with modems, which
anyone can use a phone and
modem to log on to, download a
lot of demos and utilities, leave a
few messages and programs of
their own and log off. You'll find
that there are many bulletin
boards with Amiga files available
for download.

1 dfl AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE / • NOVEMBER 1V91

Send your order to :

CRAZY JOES

DEPT.AS11

145 EFFINGHAM ST.

ROTHEBHAM

SOUTH. YORKSHIRE
S651BL

Please make cheque / p.o.
poyablo to 'CRAZY JOE'S"

AXincfi

<J^^^*®&^

CREDfT CARD HOTLINE

(0709) 829286

FAX ORDERS

(0709) 878308

MINIMUM CREDFT

CARD ORDER £3
24 HOUR SERVICE

LPanDDllScB LDaDiiiia^nn ScbIMt^

| KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS : (2) = Number of disks in set; * = 1 meg; ** = 2 meg; (2D) = 2 drives; (X) = Adults Only

DEMOS /ANIMATIONS GAMES MUSIC SLIDES! 10 WS UTILITIES

040 Pr«d«tor* Megedemo (2)

744 ?Wi factor Cebt Damo

Mr copeye Mas** rr»e Beacnboys

773 Shark Animation "

K* Hudbrem Megademo p)(X)

(IT' Dragon* 1 air Damo *

WO Trip To Mar*

6*8/ Scoopex Menial Hangover

000 Madonna Cartoon Animation "

B54 Turtles DomO

1001 Station at Khem (3) -

1033 Al Tha UovlM A/itm ™

1 106 Crlonlc* Neverwhere Demo

1188 Fiftct Tha r,th

1200 Raiders of the Lott Ark Anim *

1220 Budbram 2

1238 Evil Dead Damo (X) "

1 453 Mo/a Aerotoons ■

1540 Amy vi Walker AnW

1541 Batman Animation *

1551 Too Much 3D-

1552 Magcan Animation V? *
1580 Phenomena Enigma Demo*
1828 Do The Bart, Man*

1850 Crionic* ! Total Daatnjctlon "
1684 Silent* : Blue House (2) *
1667 More Clasay Animation* "
1892 Basketbal Animation *
1701 Tron Animation (2) ■

1703 Total Resprey

1704 Total Recount

1706 Total Rettyle
1708 Total Retrial

1707 Decay Stmpaone Demo "
1753 Life Of Brian (2)

1788 LaurelS Hardy (2)<2D) •
1775 Total Confuaion •
1782 Carrot! The Che ken (2) (2D)
1784 Carroll Insomnsi (2) (2D)
1818 Darkness Megademo 2 •
1820 Magnetic F<ekl* Oemoa 02
1823 N-n-n-n-nineteen Demo

1833 Agatron Animations 33

1834 Agatron Animation* 34

1837 Rasmutex Demo

1838 Global Trash Damo
1841 Anti-Lemmin' Damo (2) "

1843 Phenomena Interspace

1844 Goid'ire Megadamo

1845 Tlmex Demos "

1 840 Enterprise Animation (2) (20) *

1850 The Wall (0) (20) •

1858 Betty Boo An,m / S*de*how

1877 AMOS 30 Demo

1881 Mike Tyson Knockout Disk

1885 Robocop Animation *

1802 Shuttlecock Animation ■

1000 Slenta ice Demo

1002 Tomson Wtual World

1023 Star Wars Damo (2) (20) ■

1028 Demo Doty Pack 4*

1020 Vector Dance

1843 Windsurfer Animation (2) *

1847 Mr Potato Hood "

1048 Mr Potato 'Chip* Are Upl' *

1050 Super Woman Animation "

1058 Creature Comforts Demo

315 Return To Earth

408 Holy CM Adventure ■

408 Wanderer

048 Star Trek (USA) (2) *

880 Laam&Piey (2)

727 Star Trek (Renter) (2)

700 Treasure Hunt

007 Ptpaiie

082 Dripl

087 Snakepit

001 Jeopard '
1004 Games Disk 8
1 113 Wet Beaver Gamee
1230 Dragon Cava

1245 Rings Of Zon •
1408 APOSO Super QuB

1411 APD82: Arcadia

1510 Pick Up A PUBBI (2) •

1512 Picture It (2) •

1517 APQl10:Croe*lira #

1520 APOl 15 Balloonacy

1528 APO130 The Wooden Bal ■

1 531 Smon Says / Spate Maths

1532AP0137 TikjTnej*

1533 The Jar*

1530 Mega ball *

GAMES PACK

37 title* on 6 daks

Including Asteroids. Sys. Tiles.

Belly 2. Pool, YachtC,

Invaders, h Ban,

Fruit Machine, Block Off,

Shoot Out. Peter's Quest ■,

and many morel

8 DISK SET ONLY £8 00
V. J

1544 Seven Tile*
1558 Adventure Solution* (2)
1573APD142 PsurCnuy
1577AP0148 Frurt Mach»na #
1570APO148 DemoUion Mieskyi *
1580 AP0148 Gobbt ' Pontoon*
1584AP0153 Missile Command
1591 AP0180 Quizmastar*
1806APD178 Mastermmdn°airUp*
1610 APOlBO. Dungeon Oafver (2)
1812 APD182 Ptce Kingdom (2)
1 068 Tomtespelet
1670 Wheel Of Fortune
I860 Hints Disk One
1700 Terror Liner 2 (X)
1711 Mental Image Gamee Disk 1
1715 F rant* Freddie

1 720 Cabaret Asterotde

1 746 Word Games Volume 1 *

1747 Word Game* Volume 2 *
1 746 Strategy Gamee *

1740 Tructan'(2)(20)

1780 Arcade Game Cheats 1

1700 Serena 2

1827 Scum Haters

1832 Pom Pom Gunnar •

1870 Sea Lance*

1802 SE u C K Simpsons Game

1883 Brona II*

1005 J Nicklaue Course Drsk 1

1018 A»r Ace II

1028 Napoleon* Warfare System *

1045 Island of Nephoton* Adventure

1040 Dungeon Master Companion

062 Awesome Sound*

067 PSB Suburbia

081 Oefinfjvej M Jarre

087 Power Surge

100 Amiga Chart 3

• 88 Vangelis *

187 Crusaders Audio X

204 Sound Atax 2

237 Zee's Hip Hop Music

407 CO Player Demo*

400 Crusaders Freekd Out!

418 Electric Youth (2)

407 Amiga Chart 5

552 Music Invasion 3 (2)

654 Powerlords : Power Musi* 2

700 Digital Concert IV

713 Ftaahl - Quean

722 Beatmastar Club Mix

724 Technotronc Remix

748 Crusaders Bacteria

824 Dig sal Concert V

050 Sonet House

866 Pan 3 Muse Disk

014 Special Brothers Muse 2

035 Madonna . Hanky Panky

040 Hooked On Sonrx

041 Soundtrack** Jukebox
080 100 C84 Games Tunee
070 The Comic Stnp Remix
078 Scoopex : Beast Sonrx

SOUNDTRACKER
SPECIAL

Make your own music on

the Amig* 1 This pack Includes

the programs, songs, module*

and instruments - enough to

get you started and

keep you going for hoursl

^BDISK ^^N^Y^CS.OO

088 Amue Revolutions
0O3 PSA Music Demod.sk 1

1028 Dig lei Concert VI

1107 Stop Rflht Nowl •

1202 Crusaders Does Genesis
1630 Accasson Sun Wind
1685 Oepeche Mode Music Dak
1604 Art Of MED Musk Disk

1805 Seal: Crazy Remix*

1806 SOF C : Sounds Or Dtglal

1713 Spaced Out Vol 1

1714 Spaced Out Vol 2
1718 I Think We're Atone Now

1717 Everybody Dance Now

1718 Betty Boo Doing The Do
1755 Amazing Tunee 2 (3) *
1783 Aamond Galant Knight (3) *
1772 Taipan Muse Disk (2)

1 776 Crusaders Sheet Muse

1777 Beatmestera Technology

1787 Magnetic Beats 2

1788 Magnetic Beets 3

1821 Academy Music Collection

1822 Brainstorm Beat Of Grub*
1824 SCRMusax2

1828 Sgt Pepper Reviled (2)(2D) *
1831 Vega Muac
1021 Computer World Music 3 "
1827 Here Comes The Hammer

030 JOE Siideshow2
078 Vallefo Fentasy Art (2)
084 Mega Art D • k
183 NASASkdeshow
187 Dig View Sideshow
171 Palnck Nagel Pcturee
180 Eecher Skdeshow
238 TV Soon. Basketball
282 Forgotten Realms
TOO Roger Dean Shdeehow
367 Max's Art Disk 1

411 Photofsa Portfolio (2)

672 Utopia Photomontage 1

673 Utopie . Photomontage 2
617 Neighbours Slideshow
720 Ovgy Piggies (2)

742 Madonna Slideshow
767 Onemewa/e SlKJeshow
776 Exodus Real 30
814 VizSudeahow

831 Utopia Cartoon SI ideehow

832 Utopia Photomontage 3
863 Scream Queens (2)

878 Sun Skde III

801 Creepehow

800 Madonna Skdeshow 2 (2) *

015 ApoTsDigahow*

031 Heroic Dreams
042 Garfield Slideehow
068 Gorezone Slideehow (X)

1044 Desert Island Slideshow

1061 Total Recall Slideshow

f "\

GLAMOUR DiSKS

For a full list send e stamped

eddressed envelope to :

BLUE MOON

PO BOX 123

WATH- UPON-OEARNE

ROTHERHAM

MB TOW

Plaass Include a statement

•eying you are over 18

(Blue Moon are not connected

with Crazy Joe's in any way)
,._____ ^ •

1062 Golems Gata
1073 Fraxion Fantasy

1082 Annie Jones (Neighbours)

1085 Comic Slideshow PO

1 103 Girls Of Sports Illustrated

1210 Turtle* Sideshow

1283 Crusaders Fvchter (2) (2D)

1272 Nemeeie Prologue

1277 Fraxion DMne Ve-ons (2) *

1270 Forgotten Realms "00

1475NemeM Chapter 1 (2) •

1480 Tha Ago Of SUck

1523 Nik Wiliams Damo

1546 SkyWalker Oigtshow 1

1 54 7 Sky Walker O»g<show 2

1581 Demon* Skdeshow 3 *

1088 Megee Staff

1708 Invaibte World SlOeshow

1710 Yebba Oabbo Cartoons

1781 Ranactions Ray-Traced

1 830 Night Bread Slideehow

1640 Film Fosters Skdeshow

1878 Reflections Ray-Traced 6

1801 Leads United Slideshow

1818 Debbie Harry S/show (2) (20) *

081 UEdl Word Processor

110 Amiga MCAD

180 PageSetier Oo Art

210 icons'

250 UKimate Bootbkxk Cos (2)

348 TV Graphics (7)

353 Shows 2 (SS maker)

410 DPaint Cartoon Brushes

442 DPa.ni Fonts Daks (4)

458 HAM Radio Utiimea (5)

546 Iconmanial

571 Jazzbanch

580 Dope Intro Maker

501 Business Card Maker

505 Ameteur Radio Dak

832 MSH (MessyOOS)

642 C Manual

061 Programming Disk

602 Sound Appkcabons (2)

684 Video Appscabona (2)

807 Graphics Management (2)

001 TheCommsOek

002 OEO Text Ed-tor
1071 NoisaPujyer V3
1070 Prophecy Coder Mag 1
1005 Database Workshop (2)

1007 DPamt / PageSetier Ci.p Art (2)
1000 Video Graphics (4)

r -s

HOME BUSINESS PACK

A suite of programs for those

who want to dabble on tha

serious side of computing :

Nag. Bank'n, Journal, QBase,

Spread, Wordwrtghl,

I Am.geSpeu, inventory, MemoPed

I end morel
8 DISK SET ONLY C8 00
V. J

1 1 1 7 Geneaoiogv *

1225 Hardware Protects Mag

1228 ST Emulator (German)

1234 Tetr* Copy

1273C~Ugh<

1450 Wua Super klUara

1451 EksctroCAD

1452 AmiBase

1536 Master Virus Killer V2
1538 North C (packed)

1537 North C (unpacked) (2)

l545SpectraPaintV3
1550 FlexlBaseV2

1580 AP0138 Language Tutor
1606 AP0176: Database Master 20
1820 ZX Spectrum Emulator
1683 Dynamite Cut n" Pasta Font*
1 858 Demoiahers 202 Utxmaal
1878 Taxtpfcjs Sharewere WP

1880 DCopy &UUities
1884 Equinox Intro Wrier '
1886 MEDV3 1

1883 DICE V2 06A

1806 Desk Bench (3)

1008 PageSetier Clip Art (8)

1014 Sideshow Construcbon Kit

1042 Master Virus Ksler V2 2

1061 (Qng Jamas Bible (3)
1064 Ceitcs Damo Maker

1060 RSI Damo Maker (English Doc]

1881 RSI DM UN.ty/Heip Disk

1062 TSB 3D Vector Desyner* VI 1

Theac are just a lew of the many disks in the library. For details of thflotherasend 50p for our CATALOGUE DISK which also j^jpj_ s _pjj|REE 9 am fl

PUBLIC DOMAIN PRICES

1 - 9 disks
@£1.25ea.

10 or more
@£1.00ea.

Price is per disk
NOT per title

BLANK DISKS, DISK BOXES 1 ACCESSORIES

CMSK BOXES

BLANK DISKS

10 disks £4.99

50 disks £22.50

100 disks £39 99

150 disks £54.99

200 disks £69.99

10 capacity 99p

40 capacity £4.99

50 capacity £5.99

80 capacity £6.99

100 capacity £7.99

PLEASE NOTE PRICES MAY DIFFER FROM OUR SHOP PRICES

We now stock

Deja Vu

Ucenceware

Priced® £3.50 per disk

(2 disk sets @ £5.50)

Full details of titles on

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Please note that payment
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141

&.m*

SK DATE I INDEX EXTRAS

■■'■■'«■

Daten auf Disk A: defekt?

Prufen Sie die Disk und die

Uerbindungskabel.

Emulate an ST with the Quantum and

tMtbmJ from pof* 140

the utib 0/. Calls, Cref, Err,
CctSphtc, lcon2C, Image Editor.

indent, Ubcounter and the Textra

text editor.

lcon2C takes an Amiga icon and
turns it into C source code. Why
you'd want to do that is little unclear,
but it does mean that you have the
ability to create an icon and attach it
to a file you have saved out from
your C program.

Indent is a very nice program
which formats your C source code so
that it is easier to read. All the
sloppy indents you did. all the white
space you put in, is adjusted and
neatened up. The program knows
quite a lot about the syntax of C and
it adjusts everything it meets to fit
that picture.

The Textra text editor is
supposed to be the best PD one
around, and although I've not used it
extensively I know this to be true just
from the occasional play I've had
with it. Although it is a very early
version of Textra, it's still very usable
and, as I always say, a text editor
that works at all is better than not
having one. (People normally throw
me out of the bar when I start saying
things like that, but that's by the
by...) If your C compiler doesn't have
a text editor built in, you could do a
lot worse than use this toolkit and
this editor to make your programs
really zing along.
Value for money 9/10

Tempest disk.

QUANTUM AND TEMPEST

New Wave

Another utils disk, and a very good
one too. It has a copy of SID on it,
plus more eclectic stuff like
PowerPacker, BootAnyDrive, NewZap,
DosHelp and MenuMaker. But also,
if you hit [Shift)-(F81 you get an Atari
ST emulator. Nah. couldn't be. But it
Is. I hit the key, and sooner or later
the prompt came up, along with that
ghastly green screen and wasp icon.
Urgh. Not so much an application of
new technology as a
misapplication... the very idea! I
thought the Sinclair Spectrum
emulator was a bad idea, but this
just defies description. In fact, this
emulator is only marginally slower
than my real ST. (I do have one. but
just for graphics interchange
purposes, it never gets used,
honest!) After the disk has finished
running, ST programs can be loaded
and run. Although the emulator did a
good job of loading directories and
stuff like that, it only ran a few
programs, and these were small. I
suspect it needs about 2Mb to run
safely, and I only have 1Mb in my
A500 do-it-all test machine.

But still, as an interesting
curiosity it's a fun thing to tinker with
(albeit of dubious legality as the
German version of the Atari TOS
must be living in the code
somewhere), and who knows, there
might actually be a use for it. Apart
from embarrassing any Atari ST

PAYING FOR IT

to pay between 99p
and about £2.50 per disk from a PD
software house. Whether you pay
the lower or higher price Is entirely
up to you. I suppose the variety in
prices depends on how the disks
are duplicated. If the company has
an office and a duping machine,
then It costs money to run. But if

It's built the PD house into an
existing business, then obviously It
has no overheads to speak of.
Some 99p PD houses are good.
others are terrible. The only way to
find out for sure Is to spend 99p. Or
read Amiga Shopper every month
for the same price, and find out
from us!

users you know with it, that is. Start
up the program and at the appointed
time you and a few carefully chosen
friends all stand around and point at
the poor ST owner, saying in unison.
"If the ST is supposed to be a good
computer, how come the Amiga can
emulate an ST but not the other way
round?" Then laugh loudly whilst
rolling around on the floor.

Value for money 9/10

ALL SYSTEMS GO!

EdUb

This is a disk full of systems
checking programs and although
most of them are just source code,
you will find almost every aspect of
your Amiga system has a program to
check or debug it here.
Value for money 7/10

BEST UTILS

EdUb

A collection of some of the best
utility programs around. Covers
general. CLI and disk utils. including
AZ, Clock DJ. PCopy, DiskSatv.
RxDisk, InstallBeep, NoPalReset.
SnoopDOS and many more.

Clock DJ installs a menu bar
clock which also gives you a listing of

program which simulates the
movements of astronomical objects
under the influence of gravity. For
example, you can simulate the solar
system in its entirety, or just two
stars circling around each other. It's
written by Guido Burkard.

Imploder version 3.1 is a packer
program written by Peter Struijk and
Albert J. Brouwer, which allows you
to reduce the size of executable files
whilst letting them retain full
functionality. It uses efficient
algorithms as well as taking into full
consideration the complexity of the
Amiga environment. Very well done
and easy to use. Don't get this
version though, wait for the new
version - 4.0 - which is supposedly
much improved (although it's hard to
see how it could be better than this).

PopUpMenu is a small program
that makes it possible for you to use
pop-up menus with any program that
uses standard Intuition menus. Easy
to install, and it makes many
programs so very easy to use that
it's almost criminal not to install this
hack on your Workbench disk!

SystemTracer is tool to view and
manipulate various AmigaDOS 1.2
and 1.3 system structures. Boring.

« DO TRIVIA >» VOIM I • < 199! By Gtorj« Brwsard , CHEAT

Click

'se button on your selection

UK id? of fte follmitf is- one of Salu's hfltties*
1 * * iy.

rrt* m tafouai .

NOT

Fred Fish 422 is the disk to buy for all you Trekkies out there.

how much memory you're packing.
SnoopDOS monitors all Amiga
function calls, enabling you to track
any bugs. ChipCheck does just that -
it checks your Amiga custom chips to
see which ones you have fitted.
NoPalReset resets your machine if it
boots up in NTSC mode, which
happens from time to time, and
gives you back the 56 lines of screen
that you lose rf this happens. An
annoying bug. and one which is still
hard to track. Once again the boffins
among us will find this a great disk,
but it lacks a certain gee-whiz value
which some of the others have.
Value for money 6/10

FRED FISH 422

EdUb and others
Another fine Fred Fish disk,
containing a fair ratio of duds to
brilliant programs. Gravity is a

And so is TrackDOS. a program that
allows easy transfer of data between
DOS. memory and trackdisk.devices.

TrekThvia. however, is a very
nice mouse-driven trivia program for
Star Trek fans - ie, almost everyone
over the age of 25. Contains 100
questions with additional trivia data
disks available from the author. This
is a new version which includes
selectable skill levels, a cheat mode,
and 250K of digitised music.
Value for money 9/10

FRED FISH 467

EdUb and others
Another fine fillet of Fish. Just two
programs on this one. but what a
pair they are. Muttiptot is "an
intuitive data plotting program
featuring flexible input options,
arbitrary text addition, automatic

mmmMS

142

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1 99 1

500 DISKS OF FREE PD

FOR ALL MEMBERS /p\
OF THE *

CHAMPION PD CLUB

How can FREE PD be undercut!

That5 right, when you join our Amiga VD club
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All you pay /s 30p for the disk and a small

charge for postage and packing, of around ZOp.

No minimum or maximum order.

We have a good selection of demos, utility.

music, business, games and animation.

plus many more.

When you become a member of the Champion

VD Club you will receive a free catalogue on

disk containing a complete library of our public

domain software, updated free of charge.

/Membership for one year is just €1995

payable to:

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ALL CHEQUES /POS payable to ELECTRICIOWN

CONTACT: PAUL or MARIA

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Telephone 0502 - 566752 PROP: P. BLYTH

AMIGANUTS UNITED

169 DALE VALLEY ROAD, HOLLYBROOK, SOUTHAMPTON, SOI 6QX.

0703 785680 10.30 to 5.30. Fax only.

BUG BASH: Kill the bugs, clean up the trash in the

garden. A good fun game £3.00

1036: AMIBASE PROFESSIONAL II. (VI .2) The new

additions to this database make it a must have, it

includes a nice picture addition facility

(lMeg) £3.50

877: 1 ACROSS 2 DOWN. A fully fledged

crossword program, for only £5.00 (Data disk no.

1 supplied free). Data disks 2, 3, 4, & 5 now ready

at £2.00 each.

1038: SUPER AMIDASH. Do you remember that

good old Commodore 64 game Boulderdash? Well

here is your chance to have that fun again.

1Mb £3.00

1068: MOD PROCESSOR VI. 92. Make picture
and/or music progs, adjust pic height/width. This
version will load the new 8 Channel Octamed music

and is excellent! £3.50

1161: INTUIMENU V3. The easiest way yet to
execute all your programs. By Nicholas Lewis ..£4.00
1100: SCHOOL TIMETABLE CREATOR. (Print your
timetable). By Keith Grant. 1Mb £3.00

1102: THE SPRITE DESIGNER. A good way to

draw/ save sprites. By Frank Tout £3.00

Into ending? - Want to leant? The Amiga Coders Club is
for you! ACC 1-4 is the first four compressed issues of an
excellent series for coders, even if you are new to the
Amiga. If vou want to leant Assembly, using DevPac, (or
our own new ACC special assembler disk), this is the
club for youl ACC 1-4 (compressed) 11. SO. The Amiga
Coders Club disks are packed with source, hints, tips,
advice from many of the well known coders that are on
the Amiga scene today. Issue numbers 5-17 are now
available. Please note, (excluding the compressed
introductory disk (ACC 1-4), and no. 12) the price for
each issue of the ACC disks is only 13.00. ACC 12 is our
birthday issue, it is a 2 disk set. and therefore the pnee is
£6.00. Amiga Coders Club Special! Here is a low priced
assembler package for all you coders out there in
Amigatand. (See the review in the Amiga magazines)
15.00

MASTER VIRUS KILLER V2.2 IS HERE!

It now recognises another 27 of the little buggers,

including the virulent Sha! and the destructive

Disk-Validator virus, only £5.00

It's here at last! The complete two disk version of

Mike Simpson s A-GENE

Europe £15.00. rest of the world £20.00.

Get this Geneology program now!

THE NEW (1MB) EIGHT CHANNEL

MIDI COMPATIBLE

OctaMEDV2ISHEREU!

It now contains full notation, including a notation
editor with notation printing 5-7 channel modes for
high quality, norvCPU stressing audio/split channels,
sixteen track display for Midi use and a host of other
new 'MED' features. V3.20 of the Public Domain
four channel med is also encoded into this excellent
program and you can switch from 8 to 4 channels at
will. Price is £20.00 for all European countries
(£25.00 for non-European), includes VAT but not
postage. Payment in pounds Sterling only. If ordering
overseas, send a bankers order/Eurocheque etc
(Credit card orders will not be accepted). Important
notice to all registered purchasers of OctaMED VI. If
you return your original Amiganuts disk, containing
VI, you can have V2 for half price (ie. £10.00
Europe). REMEMBER, you must return your original
VI copy.

FREE PRIZE DRAW * ALL PURCHASERS of OctaMED

V2 WILL BE ENTERED * FREE PRIZE DRAW

1st PRIZE: Golden Image Scanner.

2nd: LCD Colour TV.

3rd: £50 of progs

SUBSCRIBE SUBSCRIBE SUBSCRIBE SUBSCRIBE SUBSCRIBE

If you would lihe to obtain the Amiga Coders Club disks as soon as they are published, why not send £33.00 and ask to go on the ACC mailing list now? We will send you each issue as soon

as it's ready, (applies to issue 14 onwards). If ordering from outside EC Countries, add and extra £6.00 for years postage

PLEASE NOTE THAT ISSUES RELEASED PRIOR TO ACC 14 MUST BE PURCHASED SEPARATELY (DUE TO V.A.T. ACC PRICE INCREASE IS UNAVOIDABLE IN 1992 SO SUBSCRIBE NOW!")

If you would like to take out a years subscription for the T.BAG disks, (applies to issue 50 onward), simply send £33.00 and we will send you each issue well m advance of them becoming
available from any other supplier. (Note that issues 50 to 56 are ready now and will be sent upon joining). Issues released prior to T.BAG 50 must be purchased separately @ £2.00 each. If

ordering from a non EC country, add extra £6.00 to cover the years postage.

Note that exebdmg the T.Bag Disks, none of the above programs is Public Domain Portage: EC Countries, (mc UK), ADD 50p, non EC £1 .00. rest of the world £2.00.

THE FINAL 1991 CATALOGUE UPDATE IS READY, SEND FOR YOUR COPY NOW ONLY £1.00.

143

SLACK *<» f?^? ,R J u 1? P „ D DO NOT PAY OVER

VLflwIX ^ 1168 London Road

WILLYS

1168 London Road

Derby

DE2 9QG

99p FOR PD. ANY
MORE IS A RIP OFF!

SERIOUS SOFTWARE

261 rc Emulator

124 NoCick

091 WordwrtgM

096 MCod

099 AnarvHcate

090 lontcN

120 DCat Disk Cat

063 C Manual (4 DUk set)

139 North C

146 A66k Aftsembtor

116 Sp^drum Emulator

117 STfmuiatar

1U CU Emulator

19$ Typing Tutor

US Workbench II

099 Horn* Management

094 Horn* tanking

126 X Copy 3

122 Matter Yrrus Kilter

GAMES SOFTWARE

197 Fruit Machine Sim

072 »♦•« Arcod* Gamti

07) iMlloardCamM

066 OamM Galore Vol 1

057 Games Colore Vol 2

0M Gams* Gowre vol 3

069 Games Galore Vol 4

060 Garnet Gatore Vol 6

OAl OamM GAkyt Vol 6

101 Treasure Island

103 Parrrt

104 face Maker

106 Taking Book

037 Mlssie Command

266 Drip

075 Snakoprt

074 Pongo

066 2 Mayer Soccer League

219 lattonocy

ADVENTURE
SOFTWARE

164 Lam

165 Emprre

166 knpertum

167 lull Bun
166 Qokfal
169 Holy Oral

SOFTWARE FOR PRE
SCHOOL AGE

106 Colouring look

104 Face Maker

106 Learn & flay (2 disks)

103 Palrlt

029 Tram Set

101 Treasure Island

PUZZLE SOFTWARE

107 Crouword Creator

108 Quizmaster

111 Turn 6 Tricky

112 PuxzktPro

113 Word Square Solver

Music Software

134 Soundrrocker Pio

136 Perfect Sound Sampler

137 Classical Music
123 Future Composer
052 OctaBser

135 16 sound sample disks
(each)

MAXIMUM PD DISK
SETS

001 Business Set E4.95

005 Games Pack 1 u 95

006 Games Pock 2 £4.95

044 Games Pack 3 £4.95

045 Games Pack 4 £4.95

019 Cord ft Board £3.96
004 Programming £4.94
026 Education £4.95
024 Youngsters £1.98

020 Beginners £3 96

046 Introduction £9.00
022 Video £2.97

014 Musician £4.95

007 Demos £4.95
018 Graphics £495

Adult Sets

MAX ADULT SIT 1 £4.98
MAX ADULT SET 2 U.95

Our Adutt Seta contain
material sutroWe for over 16

0332 758683

PHONE FOR CATALOGUE. MANY MORE TITLES STOCKED

AJ.P.D.L.

All our Public Domain isprucd a\ KWp p*r disk. Postage
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contain inorr than one disk* Plrast- make all cheques payable to
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INCLUDING

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Make Cheques and Postal

Orders payable to
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17 WATSON AVENUE,
ST ALBANS, HERTS
AL3 5HP

GAMES

Missile Command

Pontoon

Risk

Star Trek d1

Star Trek d2

3d Tetris

Tetris

PakMan 81

Monopoly

Games Galore

Chess

Games Disk

Flaschbler

Video Tennis

Holy Grail

Free Catalogue with every order.

INo Minimum Order. VIRUS FREE

Orders despatched within 24 hours or receipt of
lorder.

If you cannot see the disk you are looking for, send
jus details and we will get it for you for no extra
charge.

MUSIC

M001 Debbie Gibson - Electric

Youth d1
M002 Debbie Gibson - Electric

Youth d2
M003 Madonna - Spanky
M004 Petshop Boys - Aways

On My Mind
M005 Jean M Jarre - Docklands
M006 Music Invasion 2
M007 Betty Boo d1
M008 Betty Boo d2
M009 Madonna • Vogue
M0 10 Batdance Megamix
M011 Madonna - Like a Virgin
M0 12 Eve Of The War
M013 Yellow Megamix
M014 Queen- Flash d1
M015 Queen- Flash d2
M016 Loadsamoney Rap
M017 Pet Shop Boys
M018 Jean M Jarre - Live
M019 Genesis
M020 Sam Fox (X)
M021 Queen and Black Box
M022 Dire Straits
M023 Bomb The Base

UTILITIES

U001

Master Virus Killer

U002

Mega Utility Disk

U003

Amibase

U004

Qbase

U005

Spreadsheet

U006

Journal

U007

Text Plus

U008

CLI Tutor

U009

ZX Spectrum Emulator

U010

Commodore 64

Emulator

U011

Dark Star

U012

Game Music Creator

U013

Sun Dragon Utils

U014

DCopy

U015

Zodiac Compactors

U016

Digi Tech Utils

U017

Wiz Base

U018

C-Light

U019

Jazz Bench

U020

Noise Tracker

U021

Biorhythms

U022

North Sea 1 .3

U023

M-Cad

144

PUBU^DPMAiN

wmpfW

scaling, zoom and slide with clipping
at boundaries, a range of output file
formats and publication-quality
printed output." Preferences printers
are supported via transparent use of
the PLT: device. This new version
includes many bug fixes, new

features, plus Adobe PostScript and

Hewlett-Packard LaserJet support.
Thanks are due to Alan Baxter, Tim
Mooney. Rich Champeaux and Jim
Miller for this very interesting
program.

As well as all that, if it wasn't
enough, the other program on the
disk is PowerSnap. PowerSnap is a
very clever clipboard-type utility,
written by Nico Francois, that allows
you to uac the mouse pointer to
mark characters anywhere on the
screen, ond then paste them
eomowhoro oleo. You can paste into
another CLI. or even into a string
gadget in another program. The

program checks which font is used in

the window you snap from, and will
look for the position of the
characters automatically, tt

recognises all non proportional fonts
of up to 24 pixels wide and of any
height. As a bonus it works with
AmigaDOS 2.0 in both shell and
Workbench environments.
Value for money 9/10

FRED FISH 485

Softvllle

More Fish for your fishnet. Drawmap
is an excellent program for drawing
representations of the Earth's
surface. This version includes a
completely rewritten user interface
and some new functions. It is an
update to version 2.0 on disk 315.
and includes the source code by
Bryan Brown and Ulrich Denker.

NiftyTorm is an H19/VT102/
VT52 emulator for the Amiga. It was
originally designed to be used with
the DNet system, but it has been
expanded so that it may be used as

Drawmap, from Fred R*h
disk 485, draws the
Earth from various
different views.

a normal termina

program. Nittytcrm was ^^^

designed to be a good

emulation of the above terminals, as

well as being fairly small and fast.

This is version 1.2. an update to

version 1.0 on Fish Disk 403. A very

useful addition to your machine if

you're long on comms but short on

disk space.

Spades, on the other hand, is a
very slow and tortuous game. It looks
like it was written in Basic, and is an
Amiga version of the 'spades' card
game. It's a one player version where
the computer plays your partner and
two opponents at once. Foolish and
very slow.
Value for money 5/10

SUCK UTILS

17 Bit 1274

A collection of utils. a bit routine but
very comprehensive and menu-driven
for ease of use. Features the usual
text engines and powerpacker, but
also has some disk oganisers, icon
editors, disk and file repair
programs, a virus killer and an
archive util called LHArcA. The
collection is handy, but I can think of

handier
collections, like
the New Wave one I
mentioned before.
Value for money 6/10

UTILS

17 Bit 1280

17 Bit's own utils disk, with a
collection of really out-of-the-way
techie uttls. TimeRAM is a sort of
benchmark for checking the speed of
the Chip and Fast RAM in your
computer. How is this possible?
Well, that's what I asked.
Benchmarks are of dubious use in
my book: how can you test the
performance of a computer on the
computer you are testing? Surely the
test programs run at the speed of
the computer, and so can easily
downrate themselves? The only true
test is to use another computer to
test the speed, thereby providing a
sort of control, in the scientific
sense.

ANSIPT20 is actually ANSIPAINT,
which enables you to create those
weird ANSI graphics on a normal
Amiga screen. This is handy if you
have a ANSI-based BBS, but

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Priority

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Foots

Slick Utlls comes with a rather neat front-end for ease of use.

ARTM, on 17 Bit disk 1280, Is a total system monitor.

otherwise of absolutely zero use to
anyone else.

Syslnfo is a program which
shows you the state of your system,
and things like its relative
performance to a 68030 or IBM XT.
It also senses which chips you have
fitted, how much memory you have
and which system you're running.
This is is less of a program than
version 2.0. which I saw recently, but
it's good fun nonetheless.

ARTM is a similar sort of system
monitor, but a little more interactive.
The initials stand for Amiga Real
Time Monitor, and it allows you to
examine the various system
activities that are going on under the
surface, and if necessary to remove
them. This is a valuable debugging
tool, as it allows you access (using
the mouse) to the all of the Amiga's
important little places. The Xoper
program is a similar affair, but it
doesn't feature the same level of
interaction and. for completeness
more than anything else I should
think, this is on the disk too.

VirusX v5.0 is a new virus killer
from Steve Tibbett. although looking
at it. it doesn't seem to be much
different to v4.0.

Finally, by way of little light relief
there's a copy of Jive, a text filter
that takes a sentence and converts it
into the sort of American jive talk
popularised by 1970s black
exploitation films, and indeed
Starsky and Hutch. So the question
"How are you?" comes back as 'How
you is?" and "Very good indeed"
comes back as "very baaaad
indeed". Interesting toy. but I
wouldn't recommend its use as an
English/Jive dictionary!
Value for money 7/10

OPTICOMMS 1

17 Bit 1275

This is a comms utilities disk,
containing the poputar NComm
terminal emulation and comms

program, plus versions
of packing utilities like
LHArc, PKAZip, Zoo.
Arc, LHWarp. LHFix,
and PPRefs. plus all
the documentation for
the programs. This is a
good-value starter disk
for anyone who's just
bought, or who is about
to buy, a new modem,
and needs a collection
of basic comms
utilities. The only thing
it doesn't have is the
Supertex 2 program for
using viewdata-type
BBSs (like fvticronet),
which you need to
download things from
such boards.
Value for money 8/10

144

cm. resource

t. device

cub.resowce

Ports

Hardvar

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991 1 A

PUBUCPQMAIN

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Also, sow keyward shortcuts are Available;

TextPlus Is a well-respected text editing program,

avnllnbU on 17 Bit disk 1065...

...as Is Cross, a program which will create a crossword
from a list of words supplied by the user.

BITS AND BOBS

17 Bit 1064

I call this disk bits and bobs,
because that's what it is. rather than
what it is actually called in the
library. Kb just simply 17 Bit disk
1064. although Errol Wallingford is
the person who actually compiled the
disk. Errol comes from Ontario, and
he liked this disk so much he
decided to spread it around.

This disk of bits has Triangle,
Uedit, TnpteYachtZ, Family Sol and
an odd program called TOP- What
TOP does is a little unclear at first,
as it puts a little window in the menu
bar with things like:

dfO: 35 dfl: 41

This could be the blocks used.
memory used or memory free on
these disks. As there is no
explanation on the disk. I checked
the disks using the info command to
see what the numbers might apply
to. It turns out that the program is a
track display program (hence TOP).
letting you know which track the
disks in your disk drives are on.
That'll save you the money you would
have spent on one of those fancy
drives which tells you the same info!
Family Sol, Chinese Triangle and
TnpieYachtZ are just a trio of very
obvious games. But Uedit is a very
useful text editor for programmers,
and one which I recall having
something of a following in the USA.
Value for money 7/10

GERMAN COMPILATION

17 Bit 1065

A similar disk to the Errol Wallingford
disk, only this time all the programs
are from German sources. On this
disk you have two games called
S-Ball and Tron (a version of the
Light Cycle game from the Disney
film of the same name), plus two
more serious utilities in the form of
Cross ond TextPlus.

TextPlus is another well thought-
of text editor; and this is version
2.2E, written by Martin Steppler.

There's full documentation on the
disk, and the program is fast and
fully-featured. There is a new version
out. and I believe I reviewed this a
little while ago. If you don't have this
program then go and get it, because
It's really pretty good.

Meanwhile the Cross program is
a crossword creator. You feed it the
words, and it creates a crossword for
someone to solve. It does have
some automatic flowing facilities,
where it takes a text file of your
words and fits them all together, but
you can add words and edit them
manually if you wish.
Value for money 5/10

DIP BROTHERS UTILS

17 Bit 1279

This is a nice collection, although it
contains a lot of predictable stuff. It
does have the Hatrick 60Hz
simulator, which allows you to use
NTSC programs on a PAL Amiga, and
as well as Power Packer. Amiga Real
Time Monitor, Psuedo Ops VK, and a
version of Space Invaders { Whaaat?
- Ed) it also has Utility Boot Installer
and Intuitracker. an Intuition
Soundtracker MOD player. A nice
varied utilities disk, which is better
than most.
Value for money 8/10

APPLICATIONS

DICE

Electrlclown UL-09
This is a C compiler written by Matt
Dillon, including an entire working
environment for writing and
debugging C programs, and finally
compiling them into super-fast
machine code for you to run like any
normal Amiga programs. Although
not as accessible to the beginner as
NorthC, for the technically minded
this program - once properly set up -
can cover most bases.

This is the unregistered
shareware version of DICE, obtained
usually from the public bulletin
boards and PD libraries. It is missing

one vital item, namely the Amiga
Include files in the form of
'amiga.lib'. Most developers will
already have these, and
unfortunately you will need to get
them from somewhere. The
registered version of the program
contains everything you need, and of
course pays the license fee to
Commodore for using their libs.

I don't know if you can obtain
them from Commodore as part of a
Native Developers Kit or something,
but you can try. Not having the
includes limits what you can do with
DICE, although the version on this
disk does have some files called
amlgasl3.lib and amigas20.lib which
will help a little.
Value for money 7/10

CROSSDOS DEMO

17 Bit 1266

This is a demo version of the famous
CrossDos program. CrossDOS is a
software product that allows the
Amiga user to read and write MS-
DOS and Atari ST format disks
directly from AmigaDOS using the
normal Amiga drives. It fully
integrates itself into the Amiga
operating system too. allowing your

MS-DOS formatted disks to be
accessed from virtually any utility or

application where you can hit a

button or type a pathname. The
MS-DOS disks are invisible to the

system, meaning that they can then
be used like any other Amiga disk,
as long as you use the right drive
prefix. If you name your drives pel:
and pcO: instead of whatever they
come named as, you type pel: to
make the external drive read an
MS-DOS disk, or dfl: when you want
it to be Amiga.

This allows you to access any
MS-DOS file just as you would any
other Amiga file. The release on this
demo disk is a 'read only' version of
the CrossDos program. It's a fully-
functional version of the product, but
with the writing functions disabled. If
any writes are attempted to the MS-
DOS device or disk, you'll get a
"Write Protected* requestor, no
matter what you do.

This Is a nice way to try a
product like this and enjoy it before
you buy. You might try the program
MessyDOS if you like it. as this is a
fully-functioning PD program of the
same sort.
Value for money 8/10

MUSIC

MED MODS 1 AND 2

17 Bit 1264 and 1265

A bunch of tunes made using the
MED music program, for playing or
use in your own programs. Lots of
good samples to modify and steal
too. so for musical Amiga types this
is a very good buy, especially if you
haven't got a copy of MED yet, as a
copy of version 2.01 is also included
with the disks to play the tunes. I
would recommend getting the latest
version of MED, though, and using

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MED Is fast becoming the standard tune player - and It's free. MED MODS
disks 1 and 2 contain version 2.01 of the program as well as sample tunes.

1 46 * M,C * * H OP"R • ISSUE 7 ♦ NOVEMBER 1991

28"Torrc.st Rd.. Penarth, South Glam. CF6 2DP

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Please make payment*! payable to

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Ptease make cheques/
postal cders payable to:

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Tel: 0344 412347

Top 10 Demos

Phenomena Enigma
Sitents Global Trash
Darkness Megademo II
System Violation

Phenomena Interspace
Chonics Nevervvhere
USA Vs Iraq
Crusaders Genesis
Budbrain II
Harlequin Demo

Too 10 Games

Megabail

7T0es

Drip

Gridrunner

Zeus

Shapes

Sealance

Twintris

Battle Pong

AUcAtac

Top 10 Utilities

Master V killer 2.1

R.S.I. Demomaker

D-Copy

Label Designer

Iconmania

Ham Lab

SID VI .06

Assassins Boolblocks

C-Ught

Cross Dos

Top 10 Music

MED V3.00

Game Music Creator

GMC Instruments

Oktatyser

MED Modules

Music Utilities

Soundtracker v2.5

Notsetracker

Soundtracker Samples

Sound Workshop

£1.25 each

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W/P Utilities

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l 4*\l Ctsptu utiti ton Ihxkrnaae'i

GAMES

G620 Pipeline t< ommrn taj qmatits i

ttftWTar* * fw*y

GtsJ2 Tennis

G602 \te\>ahall tlhe hrst hteakout game!

067J Trm ken iRun ymr awn rompanx ■ 2 Uni^

G672 AirWatfioi tdoodflifthisimi

' .^'7 T Ru hter Star Trrk (2 disks}

Gf*4t Star Trek if dnkU

G624 Blizzard i Superb duxH-emupi

G67I Mental Imatei isVIO J grrat pimest

G6$ I tat Mine

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G670Zem iVers addu ItWl

GrMft.i Sealame tffeat suh timulatori

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CHILDRESS

C7t)l Learn* Pla\i2 dnkst

C?02 Tram Set

i * Talktnx ColiMtns: Book

C7IW Swum Sax'stSftare Maths

C705 Treasure Island

C?(m Snakes + Ladders

C707 Pair It tPlas it \%uh the kids' }

i "*t)H Crass Fire t fun 4 addtctivei

C7W Pme Kwtdt** f2 disks!

C71I Wacko in Wonderland tUke Dizzy' t

<;raphics

GRWI C Ueht (Rax trotrt
GRrM12 ftKB TnuetRas tiare)
(iRSOJ Slide Shim < fnxtrtu rum Kit
GRRI9 Amos Paint is tood paint pros* I
C,RSi)< MandelhrtH Generator rf Bf
GRH21 Spettrapamt f serious DPatnt ft\ all
GRR07 Graphu % t'nluiet Disk
<MM2X Hamlah itireat Pu tmrr Pmessoft

MUSIC

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PUBLIC

ANGLIA PUBLIC DOMAIN LIBRARY

AngfcaHouse 1 15 Ranetagn ft»d HkusUme Soft*. *»n 7HU

TELE

0394

147

^mmum

<ontim>«i from pog* 146

the MED Player program rather than

having to boot MED and the tunes up

each time vou want to Dlav them,
inp disk contains some very

professionally-made tunes, although

I've seen some of them before as

ifiH demo tunes on certain music

player diskc.

Value for money 9/10

WHAT'S AVAILABLE?

GRAPHICS

FRACTAL LAB 2

EdLlb

Nice but not really 5tate of the art
and a bit botfin orientated. I like
FmoQ$n t os it's a real original fractal
curve program: rather than always

getting sidetracked into Mandelbrots

and Julia sets, it sticks to simple but
effective iterations of two- or three-
btdge curves.
Value for money 5/10

CELLULAR AUTOMATA

EdUb

A nice collection of all sorts of

variations on the Lite program. I
remember back in the dark ages
before fractals were a thing to be
reckoned with, myself and a chum
hnd n program on the Apple II which

played the game of Life, where
cellular animals lived and died and
migrated on your screen is a burst of
colours. These single-celled animals
would live and die depending on
certain rules, and the aim was to
keep the species going.

This idea has grown recently and
there are now Life programs for all
manner of computers. Although it's
not as interesting as fractals. Life
certainly has a bit of an addictive
grab. And it's more of a spectator
sport than you would imagine. Best
programs on the disk are Bugs, Life
3D and Demon.
Value for money 6/10

GRAPHICS MASTER 2

EdLlb

Another EdLlb collection of golden
greats, this time featuring graphics
programs. The disk has a copy of
ROT, a 3D modeller program that I'd

forgotten about, as it was originally
used with WdeoScape when you

wanted to create objects without

having to use a piece of graph paper

and a pencil It was a nice enough

3D program for its time, but since

the likes of Real 3D. 3D Construction
Kit and AMOS 3D came out, nobody

wants any of this sort of thing any
more. Still, you might find it useful -
be sure and let me know what you
use it for if you do.

The demo is a freeware
clobbered version of the 3D Master
program, which is a sort of 3D ray-
continued on poge 1 50

Utilities

These are programs which help you use your computer.
Some are just simple commands for your C directory for
use from the CLI or Shell, while others are complete
menu-dnven programs to compress files, convert them
from one format to another or even rescue broken disks.
The best disks to look for are the collections with a
selection of the best utils all squeezed on to one disk.

Applications

Some of the best programs are PD. SID, for example, is
one of the best graphic interfaces for AmigaDOS, and it's
PD (or, to be more precise, 'shareware'). SID is a graphic
front end for the AmigaDOS file system, allowing you to
move files around, delete them, rename them, copy
them and re-organise your disks. In fact, I don't know a
single Amigahead who would be without their copy of the
program. And there are many other kinds of programs
too. from business to graphics applications. Check the
PD libraries before you lash out some cash on a
commercial program - you may find a public domain
solution which could save you pounds.

Demos

This is a new art form. The demos are created by a team
of hackers, usually called a 'crew' or 'team', who get
together and have a late night hack attack' and create a
dazzling demonstration of their programming abilities.
The demos can be graphics- or music-based, but they
always have the feel of a pop video, and the music is
generally of the dance variety, although some more
exotic sonix do come out from time to time. Demo teams
usually go on to be professional programmers after a
while, so their demo days are usually limited. Scoopex
and Silents are two of the best teams, and also the likes
of Kefrens are not to be missed. Imagine a cross
between a dance record, a video and a lightshow and
you're getting the general idea.

Game demo*

In recent years, the various major software houses have
watched the PD arena growing and have noticed that lots
of people buy demo disks. So they put out demos of
their new releases, allowing the punters to try the game
before they buy. Demos of this kind usually turn up on
the covers of magazines like our sister publication Amiga
Format, and then before long the demos turn up on their
own in PD libraries. A successful and popular demo
translates into a very popular game - for example, take
note of the enormous success of Lemmings, from
Psygnosis. which started life as just such a demo.

Slldeshows

Some Amiga artists spend a lot of time creating works of
art on their computers, which is no good if nobody sees
them. So many Amiga artists make slideshows of their
work for public consumption. If you're very clever tor own
one of the fab new snapshot cartridges) you can grab the
art and examine it to see how it was done, and you could
even use it as clip art in your DTP packages. (Beware,
though, some PD artists may get a bit cross if you do.
Remember that unless explicitly stated, copyright
remains with the artist, which means that you can't
reproduce the work without their permission.) Some of

the most stunning Amiga art comes from a chap called
Tobias Richter. an artist who lives in Germany. He uses
a ray-tracer called Reflections (coming soon to the UK).
and turns out some amazing stills and animations based
on Sfar Trek and other sci-fi subjects. Watch out for him
under the name Agatron.

Music Demos

Some PD authors are music nuts, who spend their lives
churning out disks of tunes for you to play on your
Amiga. Some are Soundtracker- or /Vb/sefracAer-sampled
tunes from the charts, re-mixed in the Amiga. Others are
synthesized tunes from the classics. Most are pretty
good. If you like well-sequenced music. I think you'll be
surprised at the very high quality of the tunes around on
the Amiga PD circuit.

Disk magazines

Magazines on disk are not new, but there are more now
than ever before. Newsflash. 17 Bit Update, Computer
Lynx, Scanner and Jumpdisk are prime examples of the
type of thing I'm talking about and they are. on the
whole, very good. Magazines of this type usually contain
PD software, demos and music, plus a lot of graphics
and text as well. The text is normally reviews of software
and hardware, and is usually quite short to keep the
amount of different text files up and leave space for
programs too. The text is sometimes a bit on the ropey
side, but that's what you get for having a writer who's an
editor too. A spelling checker wouldn't hurt some of
these guys. I can tell you. Not, of course, unless you hit
them with the disk!

PD categories

There are some varieties of public domain software
which are not free to all. These are:

1 Llcenseware

These are programs which are licensed to specific PD
houses, to prevent the free distribution of the program -
although the price to the consumer is more or less the
same. MED is a good example; it's a music program
which is licensed to Amiganuts United. This program is
sold by Amiganuts. and a proportion of the fee goes back
to the author in Finland. This scheme works better than
shareware (see below) from the authors' point of view,
as the money is handed over when the disk is
purchased, rather than trusting the users to pay up later.

2 Shareware

This is a branch of PD that you pay for, but are allowed
to use free for a short time first to see if you like it. It
isn't expensive, as the author usually only asks for
between £5 and £25 for his or her efforts. In most cases
it's worth paying in the end. as you get free upgrades
and documentation.

There are lots of 'ware'-type schemes. Freeware is
usually the name given to normal PD. Beerware was one
idea where the fee for using the program was to send
the author some beer. Exclusiveware is a new idea,
which works a lot like licenseware. Others, like
Charityware - if you keep the program you are requested
to donate a sum of money to a charity - are reasonably
easy to work out from their descriptions.

1 AQ AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

1MB

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G008)

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G020)

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G037)

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G041

DEMOS

Budbrain 2. Brilliant demo

Joe 2 Slideshow. Nice pics
Impact Voctor Balls

XLS Derno Gomilation 3
Piranhas Demo. Original
Equamania 2
Kick Off 3 Preview
The Link Mega-Demo

Notek Good demo

Hysteria. By Flash

3 Stealthy Animations
Virtual World. Impressive

GAMES

Pseudo-Cop Shoot-up
Breakout With editor.

Mega Games Pack.
2 Player Soccer League
Drip. 1MB Classic
Computer Conflict
Popeye. Funny game.
Treasure Hunt. Kids game
Wet Beaver Games
Eat-Mme. Crazy game
Return to earth
Trek Trivia. Qui? game

Pipeline, pipemania?
7 Tiles. Poor mans speedball
Dragons Cave. Adventure
Frantic Freddy. Platform fun

P02)
P04)

U001)

U004)

U006)

U008)

U011)

U013)

U015)

U017)

U019)

U021)

U024)

U026)

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U033)

U035)

U037)

U053)

U056)

U058)

U060)

U062)

U063)

U065)

U067)

U069)

U TILITIES

A68K Assembler

North C

Jazzbench

Visicalc Spreadsheet

Intro Maker

Sidney And Friends

XLS Disk 1

Clip Art

The Magicians Utilities

Steel Moon Utilities

CADV

Super C Disk

Red Devil Utils 4

Amibase V3.76

Bootbench

C-Light 1 +2

System Checker

Tetra Copier

Text Plus Wordprocessor

Wordwright Wordprocessor

Running Man Update

Mag Media Disk Utilities

New Age Utilities

Pendle Europa Utils

Fonts

ICPUG Printer Utilities

XLS Best Of PD 3

UTILS CONT

U052) 202 utilities. Yes 202
U066) Print Utils. Very handy
U053) Text Plus. Friendly WP
U068) XLS Best of PD Vol 2
U070) Spectrum Emulator +

Games.
U065) Fonts. Lots of them
U071 ) Med 3.0 Good music editor
U073) RSI Demo Maker.

The best
U054) The Master Virus Killer.
P001) Pascal. PD Pascal

Compiler
U089) Flexi-Base. Very flexible
U092) Deluxe Paint Fonts Disk
U096) Studio Rippers. Rips

sound
U098) Electro CAD.
U079) Noisetracker. Brilliant
U094) Soundtracker V2.6

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amsm*

continued from pocje 148

tracing program. It doesn't work too
well on my machine, but that could
be my fault for not giving it enough
memory. It looks reasonably good,
though, and has a few elements in
common with Octree Software's
Caltgari odltor.

i no mam event on the disk is
me 'graphics programs' drawer,
which contains a wonderful selection
of image tools. ImageLab is a
powerful Image transformation tool,
which allows you to reduce and edit
the colours in an IFF file, and even

translate it into a halftone, it takes a

while to work, but the results are
nothing less than stunning.
IfTMaotor is another approach which

lots you alter the format of an IFF file
to another format - high-res to low-

^Pm.1 liitnitii

Trlpppln - a very suspiciously-named 70s game...

res, for example, turning HAM off.
that sort of thing. Mostra is a
universal file viewer, although I prefer
Superview myself. Image Tools is a
collection of CLI programs for you to
run which change the colouration of
a file, give you a histogram of colour
useage and various other tasks.

All in all, a very handy collection
of tools, and a disk you should
definitely look in to if you're serious
about graphics.
Value for money 8/10

DEMOS & GAMES

AUENS SUDESHOW DEMO

17 Bit 1270

A very entertaining series of digitised
images from the Mens
film, accompanied by an
atmospheric tune. Nicely
done, but of limited
staying power.
Value for money ...6/10

CLASSIC GAMES

EdUb

A collection of famous
Amiga games, like 3D
Tic-Tac-Toe. China
Challenge, Backgammon
(which I still don't know

Fan* of Slgourney Weaver
will like the Aliens
Slldeshow Demo, which
can found on 17 Bit
disk 1270.

the rules to!),

GoMoku, YachtC3,

Monopoly and Chess.

Something to while

away the wee small

hours.

Value for money 8/10

WORKBENCH GAMES
EdUb

Some games to play while a disk is
formatting, or you're downloading
something and want to idle for a
minute. Contains a few good games
like Yawn\ and MiniBlast, but my
favourite is Thpppin, a game based
on an old 70s board game.
Value for money 8/10

THUNDER JAWS DEMO

17 Bit 1287

A demo of the Thunder Jaws game.
The demo has some pretty graphics
and powerful sounds, but little to

offer in the way of gameplay other
than that. It's reasonable, but
nothing earth-shattering.
Value for money 5/10

GOOD NIGHT

If you have any questions about PD.
or some viewpoint you would like to
share with me. then why not drop me
line at Public Domain World. Amiga
Shopper, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath
BA1 2BW. Or e-mail me on CIX as
snouty@compulink.cix.co.uk.
Prestel/Micronet as 219997854,
Telecom Gold as 74:mik2077 or The
Direct Connection as
uadll35@dircon.uucp. Q)

Amiga Mouse PD
182A High Street
Margate

Kent

« 0843 228166

Amtganuts United

169 Dale Valley Road, Holrybrook.

Southampton SQ1 6QX

• 0703 785680

Akore Shareware

7 Bshergate Point, Lwr Parliament Street

Nottingham NG1 1GD

» 0800 252221

AMOS PD Library

25 Park Road, Wigan WN6 7AA
tr 0942 495261

Anglta PDL

115 Raneldgri

Feiixtowe. Suffolk IP11 7HU

• 0304 283494

BttttercNpe

Cliffe House, Pnmrose Street
Keighley BD21 4NN
tr 0535 66/469

CanDo PD Library

128 Portland Crescent
Stanmore. Middlesex HA7 1NA
» 081 2043954

CoN Computer*
354 High Street
Chatham
Kent ME4 4NP

• 0634 831870

CIS

PO Box 7. Bletchley
Milton Keynes MK2 3YL
tr 0908 640763

Comp4J£ave

PO Box 157, Hayes. Middlesex UB3 4SR

Crazy Joe's

145 Effingham Street. Rotherham

South Yorte S65 1BL

» 0709 829286

Dtgttal Applications

118 Middle Crockerford
Basildon, Essex SS16 4JA

• 0268 553963

EdUb

Scotland Farm, StocKwood Road
Bnslington, Bnstol BS4 5LU
» 0272 723489

Elect rtclown

90 Nouey Road, Lowestoft

Suffolk NR33 OOG

tr 0502 566752

EMPDL

54 watnall Road. Hucknall
Nottingham NG15 7LE
9 0602 630071

Goldstar Computers
PO Box 2. Tyldesley
Manchester M29 7BN

• 0942 895320

rCPUQ

PO Box 1309, London N3 2UT

• 081-346 0050

Kemow Software PD Library

51 Ennors Road. Newquay. Cornwall

NBS

132 Gunville Road

Newport

Isle Of Wight P030 5LH

• 0983 529594

New Wave Software

PO Box 199
Manchester Ml UE
» 061-839 5378

PAS Amiga PD Club

3 St John's Walk

St Ives.

Cornwall TR26 2JJ

PCS International PD

Freepost WN5157F
Hindtey. Wigan
Lanes WN2 3BR
tr 0942 521577

PD Direct

DeptASH, Unit 3
Railway Ent Centre
Shelton, Stoke ST4 7SH
tr 0782 281506

PDSoft

1 Bryant Avenue
SouthendOn-Sea
Essex SSI 2YD
« 0702 612259

Postal PD

77A Nottintfiam Road

Eastwood

Notts NG16 3AJ

• 0773 531991

Public Domlnator
PO Box 801

Bishop's Stortford
Herts CM23 37Z
» 0279 757692

RtvenSmPDL

30a School Road

Tllehurst

Reading, Berkshire RG3 5AN

• 0734 452416

Sector 16

160 Hollow Way
Cowley. Oxford
« 0865 774472

Seventeen Brt Software
PO Box 97. WakefieW
West Yorks WF1 1XX

• 0924 366982

SoftvWe

Unit 5. Stratfield Park
Elettra Avenue. Watertoovilte
Hants P07 7XN

• 0705 266509

Start Computer Systems

Barbican House. BonnersfieW
Sunderland SR6 OAA

• 091-564 1400

P0B0X15

Petertee

Co. Durham SR8 1NZ

• 091-587 1195

Virus Free PD
23 Elborough Road
Moredon
Swindon
Witts SN2 2LS

• 0793 512321

West Midlands PD

33 Sprtnghill Rise

Wribbenhall

Bewdley, Works DY12 1EA

9 0229 402747/400490

Workbench PD

1 Buccluech Street
Barrow-in-Furness
Cumbria LA14 1SR
tr 0229 870000

1 BA AM'GA 5HQPPER • IS5UE 7 • NOVEM6ER 1991

Due to massive bulk buying and low cost

advertising we can offer you THE BEST DISKS

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China Challenge
Welltrix
Death Bunkers
Tripp pin

St PER G KIDDER

Video Poker

Dll EMMA

Ping- Pong
Circuit War
Tron
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UTILinES

SPECTRAPAINT V3.4 (The No. I paint package) DOSHFl P & GLOSSARY

MKNLMASTER V2.1 (Very latest with full docs) (Two great handv aids).

POINTER ANIMATION (Create your very own moving masterpieces!)

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DEJAVU 4: THINGAMUIC

UfcJA VU 5; JUNGLE BOOR 1 1 Me«i

ULJAVU 6: a'KADO

DEJAVU 8: WOKK AND PLAY ll Meg)

DEJAVU 9: AMOS ASSEMBLER

DEJAVU 10: THE WORD FACTORY (1 Mt«l

DEJAVU 14: PLAY IT SAFE (1 Meg)

DEJAVU 17; DOGFIGHT 2 (1 Met! I

DEJAVU 22: LC10 FONTS

DEJAVU 24: THE SHINING WAV OF RUNG FU

(2dkdu)_(lMcf)
DEJAVU 30: SHYMER (1 Meg!
DEJAVU 33: AMOS CREATIVE ADVENTURE TOOLKIT

(1 Meg*
DKJAVr 34: INVOICE PRINTER (1 Mt|D
DEJAVU 35: T-TECDRAW ( 1 Meg)

/'lease make cheaues/P.O's payable lo Dtgitz
* ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED *

No minimum order, same day despatch
We pav the postage ll'Rt

European orders pkase add 20p per Ji>k.
Resi of world add 50p per disk.

UTILITIES

PCQ PASCAL a pascal compiler

A68K 68000 assembler

MEDV3.11 music eddor

DCOPY disk copter

RSI DEMOMAKER br* demo maker

T.S.B. VECTOR DESIGNER ace program

KW1CKBACKUP hard disk backup

M.V.K. V2.1 virus killer

ZEROVIRUS ID VI. 18 good killer

BOOTX V3.64 good virus killer

ST EMULATOR rt works

SPECTRUM EMULATOR oW memories

STARTREKKER 4/8 track editor

NOISE TRACKER loads ol versions

TEXTPIUS 2.2E nice word processor

ARP VI. 3 some useful commands

SO VI .6 tne best directory uW

AMBASE V3.67 very good database

ELECTRO CAD design your crcurts

MCAD armga cad program

NOISEPLAYER V4 a great module player

UEOn* V2.3 word processor

FLEXI BASE V2.00 neat database

C MANUAL V2.00 a* you need for C

MED V3.10 .new version music editor

ANALYTICALC powerful spreadsheet

ICONMANIA icons* tool

WINDOWS BENCH new look workbench

MESSYSO handles PC files

MUSIC

BABY S1TTW BOOGJE ...funny sampled song

BARTMAN REMIX great sounds

NEWTRONS MUSK) BOX very weB done

KEFRENS JUKEBOX select and listen

STAR DREK 2 disk comedy

JOURNEY WTO SOUND and so it is

BARD ft A BOX hrst disk from academy

POWERMUSIC power lords music disk

FOOLS GOLD good mustc from sanity

BANGING RAVES music from intuibon

STARLINE select and listen tracks

TALK TO THE TREES great sampled song

GOLF GAME br* 2 disk sample

VOGUE CD PLAYER ..looks and sounds good

VTVALDI 2 disk classical

DEMONS MUSIC quality sounds

ANIMATIONS

R0TAMlGA(1.5meg) ....neat ray traced amm

MORE CLASSY ANIMS good quality

P0G0(1.5megl good anrni wrth sound

RANDI BRAZEN (ImegJ a bit x rated

UGLY MUG (lmeg) very good dig. amm

THE MAGICIAN (lmegl ray traced anim

STEVES ANWS (1 TO 5) very bdy work

FILLET THE FISH very amusing

AT THE MOVIES (1.5meg) brilliant

PUGGS IN SPACE cute little alien

ANTI LEMMft (2meg) got to be the best

TRRENO (lmegl good ray traced amm

THE STORY OF A VIRUS Omeg) neat

CAR ANN (Imeg) great graphics

THE GYMNAST llmegl ray traced & tidy

GAMES

NESTOR very good card game

MENTAL MAGE GAMES (lmegl fantastic

ARCADIA good Amos breakout

AMIGA RACE (lmeg) get set and fire

MAHJ0NG nice gfx good game

THE HOLY GRAIL (lmeg) good adventure

STAR TREK 2 disk space voyage

TRUCKNG ON (lmeg). great 2 disk game

SHAPES addictive puzzle game

MEGABALL a great game of breakout

BALOONACY drop those bombs

LAZER-ZONE arcade blast emJ

STfiASH good old matters

DESTNATtON MOON tncky space game

CHINA CHALLENGE adebctrve pu/zles

DUNGEON DELVER .2 disk arcade adventure

THE MAZE don t get too lost

HOLLYWOOD TRIVIA an interesting quiz

INSIDERS CLUB wheeling and dealing

WHEEL OF FORTUNE good quiz game

THE WOODEN BALL (lmeg) speedbal clone

l/Klr * ,. ..diCdOQ IWe

TOMTESPEL two player action

TIE TRAIL (lmeg) bdy puzzle game

EXCALBUR shoot everytrung

PIXIE KINGDOM 2 disk arcade quest

SEA LANCE strategy at sea

POM POM a very good blast em game

YELP neat game for the kids

READY ROBOT DEMO (lmeg) fun learning

SLIDESHOWS

SURE RHAM CARS quality digi ptcs

WATERSHIP DOWN ....catch the cute bunn.es

GHOST HUNTING boo!

r* TVYORK superb art

NAGELESOUE brftant artwork

MADONNA SLIDES 3 Asks of thngy

DEMONS ill great music & pics

AMIGA PARTY GRAPHICS very bdy work

LAUREL & HAR0Y (lmeg) cute 2 drsker

DtGGY PCS 2 drsks/brt pic S

NEMESIS PROLOGUE good artwork

NEMESIS CHAPTER 1 (lmeg) 2 disks

UT0PH1A CARTOON SUDES fun pics

HYPERDISK 1 good pics and story

DEMOS

LXX LY MIXTURE 1 new kx* demo comp

DOLLY MIXTURE 2 more o* the same

MELTED EXPERIENCE (lmeg) brilliant

TOTAL DESTRUCTION cnoo.es ok!

GLOBAL TRASH sdents masterpiece

BASS MEGA very good from France

STENTS ICE (lmeg) nee one sdents

ENKjMA good phenomena demo

REBELS COMA (lmeg) briH classic

PULUNC THE TRIGGER (lmegl love this

BLUE HOUSE (lmegL.good demo and game

SCOOPEX CHROMIUM very well made

REBELS MEGA I neat gfx

SYSTEM VIOLATION great vector bobs

DO THE BARTMAN sounds good

BUDBRAIN N poor madonna

FRACTAL FLIGHT II (lmeg) plays well

ACME MEGA (lmeg) very fancy

WIZZCAT TRASHCAN cooool

TROPICAL SUNSET we* done sdents

NEVERWHERE neat demo from cnorocs

RED SECTORS MEGA bnR classic

CRIONICS MEGA very good

VISION MEGA (lmeg) rice gfx

UPrTrOmCOaFRCGE(lmeg) we* done

VOt DEI MEGA (lmeg) .good mufti part

DEXIONSMEGA quite My

INTERSPACE good phenomena demo

151

you
your

you
New Computer Express

There's no doubt that Amiga Shopper is required reading for anyone who claims to be

more than a lamer where the Amiga's concerned. 60,000 people already make that choice
every month.

What do you do, though, when you've eventually finished Amiga Shopper and it's still a
fortnight until the next issue? You could always compromise and go for one of the other,
lesser, Amiga magazines. But why should you, when there's New Computer Express?

Here are three good reasons why an increasing number of people are buying Express
every Thursday:

It's weekly. That means it always gets the most up-to-date Amiga news,
the latest Amiga releases, the first Amiga reviews. And when advertisers
drop their Amiga prices or arrange special Amiga deals, Express is the
first place you'll find out about it. The fact is, there is so much happening
in the Amiga world that you need a weekly update.

It's written by Amiga experts who know what they're talking about. Every
week there are Amiga news stories of vital interest to anyone who wants
to do more than play games. But there's also a weekly column written by
Amiga Format regular contributor Jason Holborn. Then there's the indepth
features on CDTV and the Amiga's future.

And of course there's the Cover Disk. Every week it includes Amiga utilities,
productivity programs and reader contributions.

To sum up. It's called Express, it's out every Thursday, it has lots of up-to-date Amiga

coverage, it features a Cover Disk every week - and it's a long time until the next issue
of Amiga Shopper.

■

•t

* ■

SAFE SHOPPING

Whether buying over the phone or at a local store,

here's our advice on how to get what you want

BUYING IN PERSON

• Where possible, always test any

software and hardware In the shop
before taking it home, to maKe sure
that it works properly.

• Make sure you have all the
necessary leads, manuals or other
acceccones you need.

• Don't forget to keep your receipt.

BUYING BY PHONE

• Bo as clear as possible when
stating what you want to buy. Make

sure you confirm alt the technical

details of what you arc buying. Some
things to bear in mind aro version
numbers, memory requirements,
other required hardware or software
and compatibility with your particular

model of Amiga (that is, make sure
you know which version of Kickstart
you have).

• Check the price you are asked to
pay. and make sure that It's the
same as the price advertised.

• Check that what you are ordering
is actually in stock.

• Check when and how the article
will be delivered, and that any extra
charges are as stated on the advert.

• Make a note of the date and time
when you order the product.

BUYING BY POST

As with buying by phone, you should
clearly state exactly what it is you
are buying, at what price (refer to the
magazine, page and issue number
where it's advertised) and give any
relevant information about your
system set-up where necessary. You
should also make sure you keep
copies of all correspondence both to
and from the company concerned.

MAKING RETURNS

Whichever method you buy by, you
are entitled to return a product if it
falls to meet any one of the following
three criteria:

A CHECK LIST FOR
MAIL ORDER BUYING

1 Make sure you know exactly what you want. Draw up a checklist of the
specifications you are looking for and what you want it to be able to do.
Check with the suppliers that their product matches your list

2 Will the product you have In mind work with your existing set-up, and
Anything else you are planning to buy?

4 Are there any hidden extras? Does It need 1Mb to run, or a hard disk?

3 What technical support Is provided by the supplier? Does the
manufacturer offer after-sales advice? Check before you buy.

6 Check the guarantee terms. How long Is the free warranty? What does It

offer?

7 Draw up a list of these details and make them a condition of your order.

8 Check the price and delivery details when you order, and make a note of
them.

9 Note down when you placed the order and who you spoke to.

1 When ft arrives, check everything carefully. If anything Is missing, don't
use the product at all - contact the supplier. If It doesn't work, make the
obvious checks such as the fuse. If It still doesn't work don't try to fix It -
contact the supplier.

• The goods must be of
'merchantable quality'.

• Tho goods must be as described'.

• Tho goods must be fit for the
purpose for which they were sold.

If they fail to satisfy any or all of the
criteria, then you are then entitled to:

• Return them for a refund.

• Receive compensation for part of
the value.

• Get a replacement or free repair.

When returning anything, ensure that
you have proof of purchase and that
you return the item as soon as I

possiblo after receiving it. For this
reason it Is important that you check
the hardware or software as soon as
it la delivered to make sure |

everything you ordered is there and
works as it is supposed to.

HOW TO PAY I

Paying by credit card is the most
sensible way. whether buying in
person, by post or on the phone,
because you may be able to claim
the money from the credit card
company even if the firm you ordered
from has gone bust or refuses to
help sort out your problem.

Otherwise, you should pay by
crossed cheque or postal order -
never send coins or notes through
the moll. |

GETTING REPAIRS

Always check the conditions of the
guarantee, and servicing and
replacement policy, so that you know
what level of support to expect.
Always fill in and return warranty
cards as soon as possible, and
make sure that you are aware of all
the conditions contained in the
guarantee.

BUYING PD

Even though PD software is relatively
inexpensive, you should still apply
the guidelines set out above, making
sure that you confirm all orders as
clearly as possible.

Shopping around is still
important when buying PD because
different houses charge different
prices for the same disks. There is
no set pricing structure for disks, but
bear in mind that PD houses are, in
theory, supposed to be non-profit
making operations. QJ

ADVERTISERS
INDEX

1st Choice (Leeds) 62-63

16 Bit Centre 48

ADPDL 144

Advanced Electronics (NE) Ltd. .107

Almathera Systems 76

Alternative Image 23

Amiganuts United 143

Analogic Computers 115

AngliaPD 147

ARK 99

ArnorLtd 133

BCS 69

Best Prices 112

Bitcon Devices IFC

Bits & Bytes 99

Byteback 10

Calco Software 90

Care Electronics 23

Champion 143

Checkmate Digital Ltd 76

Classic Computers 96

Computec 23

Connect 61

Cortex Ltd 25

Crazy Joe's 141

DJW Microsystems 115

Dataplex 90

Datel Electronics 102-103

Delta Pi 86

Dial-a-Disk 99

Digita International 9, IBC

Digitz 151

Dow Computers 46-47

DTBS 136

Elect riclown 143

Evesham Micros 94-95

Ferguson Smith 69

Future World 54-55

Galaxy Grafix 23

Global Computing 122

GPS 86

Harwoods 35-41, 53

Hobbyte 33

Hyperquick 147

I.C.P.U.G 139

Intraset 122

KC Video 139

Kosmos 86

Ladbroke Computing Int 120

Manor Court Supplies 136

Maximum PD 144

MD Office Supplies 149

Media Direct 130

Media PD 135

Merlin Express IBC

Microdeal 12

Micromail 20

Microtext 76

MJC Supplies 64

Mollmac 28

Omega Projects 56

PAS Enterprises 139

PLC (Media Direct) 151

Postriaste 139

Power Computing 17. 45. 109

Precision 117

Redlaw Resources 136

Selec Software 139

Silica Shop 125

Snap Computer Supplies Ltd 42

Soft Exchange 90

Softmachine 128

Softstore 69

Software Publishing Corps 117

SPD 149

Speedy PD 147

Star Associates Computers 136

Surface UK Ltd 4

Swift Micro Computers Ltd 127

Telescan Computer Services 151

Tracy 127

Trilogic 42

Virgo Developments 107

We Serve 127

Zone Distribution 115

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

153

COMPETITIO

miga Shopper's monthly
video column will have

whetted the appetites of

many of you for exploring

desktop video, but the expensive
equipment required puts most oft

"having a dabble". Now Amiga

Shopper, in conjunction with G2
Systems, is delighted to offer you the
chance to explore this expanding

area of the Amiga's influence. And
we're not offering some budget

starter system: no. our prize this
month is a truly excellent piece of kit
which any professional would be
proud to own. With a list price of over
a thousand pounds, the G2 Systems
VideoCenter Plus is no toy. It's a
genlock - a hardware device which
overlays the Amiga's screen image
on top of a video signal from a
camera or tape rocordor but it's
much more than just that.

As well as the usual genlock
controls for fading the Amiga and
video screens in and out. the
VideoCenter Plus has a series of
faders which control 'wipes' - effects
where one screen is transformed into
another or sections of one screen
arc shown in a 'window', like the
picture In the corner of a news
bulletin. Ten different wipes are
provided, and you have full control
over positioning and the speed of
transformotion. All this can either be
controlled by switches on the
hardware, or from the Amiga using
the software and cable provided.

Amiga Shopper reviewed the
VideoCenter plus in the September
issue. Our resident expert Gary
Whitetey was impressed. In awarding
it the unusually eenerous score of
82/100, he said:

"I tested the VideoCenter Plus
with a Panasonic F 10 camera and a
domestic VHS player, and was
impressed with the quality of the
genlocking produced. The wipe edges
are clean and sharp and all of the
wipes looked good. The faders are
smooth and positive, and the layout
of the control panel is
straightforward, making all the
controls easy to get at and use. Even
when using a domestic VHS player

The superb VideoCenter Plus

(left) Is our competition prize

this month, and you can see

from the rating we gave It In

September (below) that It's

well worth having.

the quality

was better than I would

have expected. It would seem that

the VideoCenter Plus can follow and

encode even relatively poor quality

signals well, which means that the

build-quality of the circuitry is high -

which, of course, you would expect

from a company with the reputation

of G2 Systems.

"And. unlike some systems I've
seen, it is possible to reduce the
size of the wipes right down to
several pixels in size and still see
that the edges are crisp."

The VideoCenter plus could open
up unexplored avenues of Amiga
usage for you. Fancy winning it? It
couldn't be simpler. On the right are
three questions about video;
between pages 122 and 123 there is
a tear off card. Enter your answers
and name and address on the card,
stick a stamp on it, and drop it into
the postbox.

All the usual small print applies:
no correspondence, editor's decision
is final, employees and relatives
don't bother etc. Closing date for
entries is November 7.

QUESTION 1

What does VHS stand for?

a) Very High Sharpness

b) Video Home System

c) Video High Scanning

QUESTION 2

What does 'video' mean In latin?

a) / remember

b) / record

c) I see

QUESTION 3

What was the name of the failed
video system launched by Sony In
the Seventies?

a) SonyVMon

b) Studio/ 8

c) Bet am ax

Write your entries on the card
between pages 122 and 123, and
get rt to us before November 7.

Checkout

VideoCenter Plus

Documentation 9/ 1

Tfco luppiid morvyah COW t*fy4nftg you
nood to Inow ond ol #»
bMMMOrf

Ease Of Uh 17/20

Aftor ifi coonmd up rtuj V*dtoC«n*r
Win »* vory *o*y to vn, you'I toon
bocof-uj (omJ*af w* *• %*mfim layout ol
fko control* ond llwr (unction t

Softwoi* 7/ 1

St* oighrfor^ofd ond to *# potni. *mn
though if* oi •avr to un iho unit manuaty
oi by r#moro control from iortwar#

17/20

a NtMiriQMd Bvtfa * ntl di t<>

of d-no*»t wrth ft* Anifjo colour icnomo (><
ihof'i important to you), ■» v*l Iwvihod
rjr*d OppOOO to oo durobW 'I ♦>•
•bc*on# vn*t or* oi toM ot *\
*•!. #*n * i boi thovU toU *m buxfc*
ond toV (or yoon A Ltfc on *>• kx o*
t*J« mough wh<fr may bo <H onry

**od*on*J0»

Quality 17/20

1 couldn't rooty fnd ony*-ng to compio-n
obov- w* *■! ««*bu* icttfy
COntHuctod p-OCO oi tqvpnujnj k porfer m>
oi wol oi torn* broodtott quofcty'
fpnkcki «h-cn 1 tor* tottod

Pnt* 15/20

A* SW5 ♦ VAT ** V«tooContor Phn <t
cono«nry no* o choop lotaon to guniock
profatomi, but rt dooi 'otWtft fho high
quoitfy of lh# •qutpmont ond ** foc<lf*«i
wh>th it contort

A*wm

82/100

VidooConlor Plui dooi tAocrty who* it tori
Out to do - iho' it, to gtnlocli A/mgo
groph<t with o vtdoo ngnol ond produce
flfltCh (or mixing ond wip-ng bo*w— n rh#
two ftourtvi As I orwoyi toy. you gmt\
who* you poyi *or And you do go* who*
you pcyi for wJi ft* VxfaoOntor ft*

154

AMir.A SHOPPER • ISSUE 7 • NOVEMBER 1991

Horn* Accountt2®

An advanced version of

Home Accounts, which is

limited only by the capacity of your

computer. Sophisticated reporting with

graphics, and special options such as VAT

and loan calculation facilities. Equally

suitable for businesses, clubs and charities

(ST and Amiga) £54.99

Horn* Accounts

Ideal (or home users who want a simple
low-cost way to plan and manage home
finances. £29.99

DOOM

This fast, simple spreadsheet includes

many advanced features, including a

windowing facility, so that you can look at

different parts of the spreadsheet at the same

time. £39.99

Mailt hot Plui

If you ever need to send out mailings or
print labels, this program is for you.
Animated labels appear on-screen as a
continuous sheet, allowing you to scroll
backwards and forwards. You can search, sort
and detect duplicate labels, print side by side
and much more £49.99

DOfaM

If you're looking for fast access to

information, and the ability to create

customised reports, then this relational

database is for you (ST). £49.99

WB&

Day -By -Day
An excellent way to get organised You'll
be reminded of birthdays, meetings and
appointments It includes month/week/day
planners and automatic reminders of overdue
events £29.99

Personal Tax Planner

Plan your own tax with ease This simple

program will calculate your income tax

liability, allowing you to perform instant

what-if ' calculations and produce pertinent

facts about your tax position. A professional

version is also available for accountants and

financial advisers. £49.99

H.ANNH

«tf&

E-Typo

Transform your computer into a type-
writer. Because text is printed instantly, you
can line up your form, press return and space
a few times to move to the correct place, and
then start typing. Ideal for filling in forms
and envelopes £39.99

System 3

A suite of programs which perform all the basic functions

for a small business. They may be used

independently or integrated and include

Cashflow Controller, Stock Control and

Invoicing and Statements £59.99

System 3e

Like System 3. but with extended capacity

for customer accounts and stock items.

£79.99

Cathbook Controller
Take the drudgery out of book keeping as
this program will replace your cash and
petty cash books In addition to recording
cash, bank and VAT transactions, you can
enter credit sales and purchases, and for all
thoe entries the program will automatically
complete double entrv routines, to ensure
your records are always in balance. £59.99

Final Accounts

Using the information created with

Cashbook Controller, this program will

produce a complete set of accounts, including

Trial Balance. Trading and Profit and Loss

Account. Balance Sheet, as well as useful

accounting ratios. £39.99

Cashbook Combo

A money-saving combination pack containing Cashbook

Controller and Final Accounts. £79.99

Word worth ■

I"he graphical nature of Wordworth makes

producing documents faster and easier.

With the enhanced printing fonts, Collins

Spelling Checker and Thesaurus, no other

word processor comes close (Amiga). £1 29.99

>■: |

The Digita range is available for Commodore Amiga,
Atari ST and IBM PC unless stated otherwise, and every
program comes with a seven day money-back guarantee.

The only way to really appreciate Digita software is to
use it. Phone 0395 270273 for more information, or write
to Digita, FREEPOST, Exmouth EX8 2YZ. All prices
include VAT, postage and packaging.

DIGITA*

INTERNATIONAL

software thats right 9

The Digita range is available to the trade through Columbus, Gem,
1 IB Marketing, IBD. Lazer, Lcisuresoft. Precision and SDL

Digita International Ltd Black Horse House Exmouth EX8 1JL ENGLAND Tel 0395 270273 Fax 0395 268893

- A member of Ihe WgHl group -

PtKiU ihr DtRitJ li>go Home AaountO .i"d Wordworth -rr tfgulerrd tr**""*rl» and •.■■• ■ fab ngUl jre trjdrnuris ol Dtyti HoUblgl lid
All olhertt.idemjrli and their owner* Jl* KknOWMgtd Sold cubpet lo tlandard condition* of "I* E fc * '■

AMIGA 1Mb CARTOON CLASSICS PACK

This Great Niw Pick from Commodore oftirc tverylhlng

(or ALL THE FAMILY A Great Computer with somi

Brilliant Games faaturing the latest CARTOON HITS...

AMIGA A500* COMPUTER with

(Compute with Mouse. Leeos. Atanuatt etc u toted " Mow)

A501 RAM UPGRADE,

wmss*

AMIGA 1Mb. SCRLENCLMS PACK
5UJ Amiga A50Q* & AMI 1MD RAM upgrade

Back lo me Future II

Shadow at trts Boast II
Dayt ot Thunder
Nlghlbrgpd & Deluxe Paint II

Lfl II1UIIUBI

Hood & Deluxe F

£372

£310

AMIGA 0,6Mb. 'STAND ALONE PACK

5«ndard Amiga A500' witnoul any software package ,^____

AMIGA 1Mb S1AN0 ALONE PACK (inc. A501) £349

Std Amiga A500" without software but with CBM A501 5Mb. u/g to 1Mb.

AMIGA CLASS OF THE 90'l PACK

StO Amiga AWQ' 4CBMA501 1MD.RAMu/g
Pro-Wrna (WP) Lars Spall it Home

Dilute Paint II Talking Turtles

Dcluie Prill II BBC Emulate

IMett II 1 lltl > 10 CBM Disk

W&'^puonil MisicMowm Mouse Mil

Endorsed by tht National
Association
of Ptinuiv Ftiucanofu.

K&r ^ ,LW £4g9^

AMIGA 1500 COMPUTER PACK

Trie supreme Amiga pack tor Business.

Homo, Education and Leisure includes:

C*e** Processing Unit (CPU) ...

(mo. RAM, tnw 3.5' Floppy OisK Drives and

•tght Expansion Slots thai will take all Amiga

2000 Peripherals. The HEART of your system

Keyboard ind Mouse...

Pluo-m Keyboard with a Numeric Key Pad

4 Cursor Keys Two Button Amiga Mouse

HAIIif.aH l |JiMIBMi'J:liH:liW.WIHnWTi a

w**"&rt & fi~^

iHfr WORKS r-aaliv iiWeraW Word
Processor Spreadtheei I Database

OFIUXT PAINT III 'The New One''

THf IR FINfST HOUR - Tie
Britain POPULOUS The I
Us*. SIM CITY Terrain
asMBATTLf CMtSS 30*

AMIGA 1500 (As detailed) + 1084S Monitor

AMIGA 1500 (As detailed! * CM8833/II

-STANDARD AMIGA AbOO'

All our Amiga Packs are Genuine UK Spec
win me following standard rtemtTtMturK

Amiga ASM Consaisar-SUX RAM. Work

bench System A titni Oiska, Fall sit of

Amiga Manuals 40W Colours. Built-in

t fjeeck Syntnisis. All Connecting Leads

1MB Internal Oist Orlve Buill-ln TV

Modulator. Klckstirt 1 3. Amiga Mousi.

Multi-Tasking Nolipid Easy lo use kistc

Wntii Ptocissor Stirio Sound.

flfoww' rhic i ffw minimum amfigurelbn
MpstotwrpemcontmneVENUOREiff

AMIGA CARTOON CLASSICS

* CMBB33 Mk II MONITOR

inciud-ng wie Msaaory was me steel
covers lor both Amiga and Monitor £615

AMIGA CARTOON CLASSICS

♦ CMBS33 Mk II MONITOR

♦ STAR LC 200 COLOUR PRINTER

including the necessary leads and dust
covers tor Amiga. Mentor & Print er £815

OTHER AMIGA PACKS ALSO
AVAILABLE - Phone ui for details.

BUY A SORCERORS PACK WITH ANY OF MERLINS AMIGAS
AND SAVE EVEN MORE WITH SOME GREAT PRICESII!

Q«"i

SORCERORS PACK 2

ututow ajesnacn Hanoi

■wo tarre L* wninn can.

8800*1 RksBPUff H OBI

£25

ira eCJB BXl

letrttrtrt Nehs 1 4 ? ToflilM'
rtU3 fJtrtMtci of cm TWt
tm MHlM SOftWIff SUK&OO

9utema4am

>•**■ rtaTa 1 ! BbssssMsM MM M

o o o o a a o

PHILIPS CM 8833/11

14* Stereo Medium Rctolblion

Colour Monitor witn Green
Screen Switch AND FREE L£AD

wtiMeiiftiXt

£244"

COMMODORE 1084S

14" Stereo Med Res £259.99

Univ Monitor Stand £12. 95

Monitor Oust Cover £5.95

AV7300 TV Tuner £79.95

Tilt/Swivel Stand £14.95

(Only tits Philips CM8833 MKI1II)

REGISTERED
DEALER

PRINTER RANGE

LC10MONOO £159

9 Pin Dot Matra. 240 x 240dpi. 120/2Scps

LC 24/18 MONO £205

24 Pin Do' Mat' ■« 360 k 360dpi 180/GOcps

LC 200 COLOUR ' ' £199

With a FREE Dust Cover OR Printer Standi 1 1
9 Pin Dot Mains. 240 x 240dpi. l85/40cps

LC 24/200 MONO £249

24 Pin Dot Matrix, 360 x 360dpi, 1220/55cps

LC 24/200 COLOUR £C ALL

9 Pin Oot Matrix, 240 x 240dpl. 120/25cps
XB 24/10 COLOUR 0' ' t £379

24 Pin Dot Matrix, 360 x 360dpi 240V80cps.
This is a true business machine capable ot
printing true letter quality at 46pm, huge 27K
butter exp. to 1 87K. with 12mth on site maint

£1199

LASERPRINTER4 £999

Fully HP-HP & Epson compatible,
300dpi. 1Mb memory (expandable
to 5Mb.), serial/parallel. 14 fonts,
RISC processor, lull lyrs on site
maintenance

LASERPRINTER 4 STARSCRIPT

SoeciticatJon as Laserpnnter 4. with an addition of Stars Postscnpt, 2Mb. Memory,

14*35 fonts . Apple Talk interface , lyrs on site maintenance.

LASERPRINTER B's avilable lo order £Phone for full details.

1280* MONO

9 Pin Dot Matrix. 240 x

124D MONO

24 Pin Dot Matrix,

£139

240 dpi. 120/25cps
£205

Merlin Express are Citizen

Authorised Dealers...

x 360 dpi. cps

in 9 mono

E5S33S

EBbWFsHM
1 aryilwo
ru'nenaaqr.

9 Pin Dot Matrix 240 x
SWIFT 9 COLOUR
9 Pm Dot Matrix. 240 x
SWIFT 24 MONO
24 Pin Dot Matrix. 240
SWIFT 24 COLOUR
24 Pin Dot Matrix. 240

£199

240 dpi. 160/40cps
- - £219

240 dpi. 120/25CPS

£289
x 240 dpi. 120/25CPS

£309
x 240 dpi. 120/25CPS

FREE PRINTER

STARTUP PACK

With all Citizens except the 1200*
you get 200Shts Cont A4 Paper.

SCMEflveiopes,iooCom
Addre»LaDW.1Pm»Dnvef
0<s* i Cable ky Amiga FREE'"

FREE WITH EVERY PRINTER (Marked tlttni rrom MERLIN EXPRESS

LEAD FROM YOUR PRINTER TO YOUR AMIGA'

MERLIN WORD PROCESSOR AND PRINTER SUNDRIES PACKAGE!!!

APHMl HtllianlWarl ^.f B » 1-tOPOUAUTTTHra

Pr«. will Dalabau/Oravhlei ft PMNTfR DUST COVCfl

.i MOSHEETIOf IliflS PLAIN fi ■-> 1-UMVIHSAL 3 PART

•0 0SM MICRO PtHHOlAN / PRINTER ITAHD

fOLO CONTINUOUS P*PtR V A MPARI MOUORlllflN

£99

.99

ot|ksiia4>H«tMtf

fffMIS^IRIRIPrHE^Ki

COMMODORE A590 HARO DISK DRIVE
20Mb. Std Unpopulated £279

20Mb. Populated lo 1Mb. £329

20Mb. Populated to 2Mb. £369

■

COMMODORE 1011 3.5" 2nd DRIVE

For all Amigas 500/1000/ £79.95
1500/2000. 880K Formatted Capacity,
No external power supply required.
CUMANA 3.5- CAX 354 0RIVE£6 J . 95
Enable/Disable switch. Throughport.
MERLIN 3 5- DISK DRIVE £59 95
3 5' Second Disk Drive. Eruole/Disaoie
Switch. Slim Design. 660K Formatted
Capacity. No external power supply is
needed. Throughport THIS IS ONE OF
OUR BEST SELLERS & GREAT VALUE!

COMMODORE 1352 MOUSE £39.95
Commodores OwnlH

NAKSHA MOUSE £29.95

Amiga/ST switchable. high resolution

2B0dpi, no additional mouse drivers
required, includes mouse holder and
mouse mat. E. A Discount voucher!"
COMMODORE A501 0.5Mb. £49.95
OFFICIAL AMIGA RAM UPGRADE

MIDI-MASTER INTERFACE £29.95

1 Through Port. 1 In & 3 Out

RENDALE 8802 GENLOCK £189.95

Semi professional GenlocK device Now
you can mix both video and computer
sources Ideal titling to high standards
NAKSHA A500 HAND HELD SCANNER
Cornsng soon' look oul for this one! ! !

The Bitmap Bros at Hun best 1 Giee* Gods battle aoteftat monsters"' I C?5 S3rrp)

TJTpen Pal

(C?4 99rrD)
(C3099rrp>
(C7S99rrp)
(OSWrrp)
|C25 5Jrrp)
<E25S3rrp)
(Q999rrp)

•::9?:--;

TDKI Gtflji Piarform Arude Game 300 screens in tantasK cartoon style
EYE OF THE BEHOLOER Duncwn Master style game Greet oraprucif
PGA GOLF TOUR Chx of me most reehstK gort simuUtions arounfli
TEENAGE MUTANT HERO TURTLES A lavoume wen every rounomr
DUCK TALES Become The Richest Duck* the World * a otoc* nee'
R0B0C0P II Basetf v me «m of the same name wm »«• same erton 1 1 '
F19 STEALTH FIGHTER forget the rest This is THt SIMULATOR
H0LLYW000 COLLECTION 4 GAMES m 0** ■ Batman Rooocop
» •♦. ^ t^Sii .as. BJtnqiijiiBnM.inOBBrtt Jones

SERIOUS SOFTWARE

FUN SCHOOL 3 Choose -«oe- « i S-*sof7iov»r (Oucal»on*J Fun' (04 »m»
SUPERBASE PERSONAL 2 Keep records w«i thii easy to uee A powerful Database
DISNEY ANIMATION STUDIO Outstanding arumation »or your Armoi (CW99rtp)
PHOTON PAINT II Pamlpreo l«/ANIMIoniutt.40O«coteufS.efc. |C8995-rp)

PFN PAL UVofrf pr<tte««Of withdaUbeea bgillin end g'«ph«e* Kindling EaWJfiffl

£19.99
£19 99

en 99

£19.99
£18.99
£28.99
£23 99

£23. W
£23 99

£19 99
E29 99
£81 99
£29 99

£79 95

ORIAT VALUE. THAT'S THE MAGIC OF MERLIN

Ttofet TtCMMCOTV

EPhone - % ^dtv.

mmvarr

bmA^a *l0 pBlClk %U* HATE* AVHLiitf IMH Pea^iM ste Uta« eMBJVl

CHECK OUT OUR GREAT NEW

CHRISTMAS PACKS. THEY'RE SO NEW

WE HADN'T TIME TO INCLUDE FULL

DETAILS ON THIS ADVERT!!!

New Sofcerors Packs with even MORE software.

New Lower Pricing. New A690 CD Amiga Onve

(available soon), New STAR LC20. XB24.200&

I XB24/250 Pnnters. Nintendo and Sega Games

Machines and tots of Special Offers to come!!!

I PHONE US FIRST AND FIND OUT A
LOT MORE ABOUT OUR NEW OFFERS!

mo-it t >ih pull Uiri«fi QF CDTV mill |M CO i AM 1 sV tM*U'

ALL Merlin Prices Include VAT 9 17.5%

RING

Jail Jfti»ih««t i*r ?4 Ktir Orltr Httllef lT»

DELIVERY

1*8)11 Mftsii tti iBoitchtri bf nil FRff It ill III NiltliH
• U'tnii Mlrlvirt it CiltHchikt be c«*ri«f MiiUfl u> it Wil
11 UMlvi: HUT WOftllNfi OAT ifll t7 II lo iflir, TWO

WORKING OAYI . all [6 for SPECIAL SATURDAY D(UV(RT ill
|ttl I IT ffltfisfj #f# fformilif tftWfj'ftUif urn* t» r If §ft$r.
vi/ff $ ct*9rwli9 tfuc-dittf if ffti ttm$j

WARRANTY

Hirlvtri proving fivlif « Mfaii || Jayi i
Aritr 11 lift ia| wlllilf) 12 montni fr»
riflltlil If til riliTiat iBiaafttlinri
U fia If mtlir liMvart §mi u
• irriuiitl |ltlll 111 10' lllllll

III li inliMii t#r RE«

■ pyrcls«it flilti VIM bi
rmir ■•••' ■"< rtUtMl
ill! lliMi cirrf siiriitt

E C

Ha fiiraia Uantl an ifitfaBataaaiLf • .mail arlaf ia««B>aaf
lat b»» •uttmt ciiiiniri it aaf irala/caliacllaa caaalar till
vlil li |icl a| |iili U*m aa Wlf aai Mf 9% l fHU «a ata
■ ivifi piaaul ta lalp ria «Jtl fiar tn|i^Mti

vl noimaiii
at pralacli
ratvrnal to

i tir
UK

vlltl VAT
ritu me

Mima an k%$^ li ii||lf IFPO iftl miM Airhali
" lalactabla Oallvary char|ai varr Irm _

uk varnailai onty. fialtv \\%m% ita la la
bf ma luiiomer aal ra-iallfatf ilir|ii «m

cirrf
Mirlli

PLEASE NOTE

WNriit tvtrr i««m n natJa to tmHira lotofmnwjn m \h% aOvtft t %
conaci. yoa i*o#W atwafi co«t*rm any offari. pricfi

aic ptw to itfat*nf yo«r ortar Wt tntftavouf (o tattVi ,
t»a«rs ma «>n ONLY cRaoot dtu»l& ihoutO it Of t»adf "acttu
our tjggi^trt ttc As oar itfvafliiiflg n loabld 10 '•■
Utr!.* TPttrifora rutrve INa figirt to aittr prodiKt ft

3fi» iay pfoOsict/afttf/iarfeca Of uptfitt pricoa (••< OM ]
if OR do**). ■ Thc«t |f»c aoI>ci Mftiin g*j*r|iita *t»tf 10 H
ar> T ihifig imt hit oifA «B5|tcr to cMoga »*thoat ros*. t^a catfo***
Dltng ifstormtfl ot jr*0 IQrittfig to tfilt cri|ngt P'tllt ****>*S
confirm damn PRtOR to afacing your orOtr

E&OE

The Maiit\D*J*i?/

MERLIN EXPRESS LIMITED

OID

mEPHONf: 0602

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WIN

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Systems

Yes, you could get into the fascinating

world of desktop video with this piece of

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£1,000 it's a valuable addition to any

Amiga owner's armoury, and it could be

yours if you send in this card

by November 7

For rules and conditions of entry see page 154

(TICK BOXES)

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